City Council - workshop

welcome everyone to tonight's uh work session on mechanic street pump station replacement project uh for monday june 22nd uh this year 2026 um looking uh looking forward to the discussion i'm going to pass it over uh to karen but it's nice to have um eric masseur from acom here and did i get that mccachran mister it's a tough one um uh terry damaris uh welcome back to city hall chambers uh eric fiedler uh still with the city um and uh working on it but suzanne peter i'm looking forward to this discussion i know there's a lot of folks that have been asking about this and glad we were able to schedule the work session to go through the project to date and what we can expect so i'll pass it over to city manager

Thank you, Mayor, and you stole all my work, except I would also mention that landscape architect Terrence Parker is here as well to answer questions as we move through the presentation. So I will share and I will start it off with Mr. Fiedler.

thank you evening mayor councillors um thanks for taking the time to discuss the mechanic street pump station project um with us tonight um again america their city engineer and i don't want to make sure we mention uh tyler reese he's also helping out as project management on the project management side of the project for the city so he sent out back he didn't get the big table but he's doing a lot of work to help us make this project run smoothly

Can we speak into the microphone, I guess?

Sorry about that. All right, before we jump into the presentation, I wanted to give a brief overview of kind of the goals and the structure of the work session tonight. I'll basically tee up kind of the background, a brief summary and the needs of the project, as well as I'm going to try to tee up a proposed concept right at the beginning so we can get a visual of where the presentation is going. I think when we started putting the presentation together, the feedback we got was we're very linear engineers and we're going through this thing. But trying to get a visual of where we're heading we thought would be helpful. And then we can kind of go through some of the details of how we got there type thing. Hopefully it doesn't ruin the punchline, but the proposed concept that we're going to talk about will include some site plans, prepared renderings. We thought the renderings would be helpful to kind of help visualize the site and help all of you kind of see, kind of talk from a consistent basis. It'll help us engage with probably some more discussions. I want to emphasize, though, that any of the figures in the renderings, again, these are help facilitate discussions. Nothing is set in stone at this point, but we thought it was important to have those just to kind of talk from a similar basis. I think the goal for this is to try to spend maybe 30 minutes on just kind of presenting kind of the project and where we're at so far. So we have plenty of time for discussion and sort of make sure we understand sort of the needs or any of the feedback that we can gather tonight. That being said, any questions before we kick it off? right let's jump in so background mechanics free pump station i know most of you have seen it or have been around it or aware of kind of the issues that we're having it's our largest wastewater pump station it can push about 22 mgd and it's the primary pump station to the wastewater plant in pierce island eric what's mgd million gallons per day. So it's a very large facility. So the pumps themselves are taller than me. They're like 12 feet tall. It's located right, I mean, I think most of you know where it is, right near the bridge, kind of go over to Pierce Island, 113 Mechanic Street. It was constructed in 63, but it was started as originally as a 10 MGD plant, and they kept on adding and adding and adding. So now it's a shoehorn of a really big station, big capacity and a small footprint. And I think a lot of you have been aware of kind of the recent Failures that we've had to the site and issues that we've had in terms of reliability and maintenance Some of these pictures are actually pretty illustrative of the issues that we're having We kind of see some of the flooding from a couple years ago But the goals of the project are you know, we need to improve the reliability of facility and We need to meet current design standards and operational recommendations. We want to integrate the site a little bit better into the surroundings, into the neighborhood and into the Prescott Park area. And also we need to make this facility resilient for flooding protection, any sort of sea level rise, and we need to be planning for the long term. That's the 50 to 100-year lifespan. So, again, that will go into how we're looking at siting and where these things should be located because right now it's – in a king tide and some of those those storm surges are they're up the door and that's that's very problematic especially if we have infrastructure that's um constructed for that long a long lifespan so just just for instance you can go back maybe just there's also other degradation stuff which makes it very challenging kind of at the site itself so um that's just an example that's that's the motor in the blue and there's or the motor and the impeller so there's the pump is even larger than that so that is very very large So we'll go to the next slide, please. All right. I'll hand it over to Terry to kind of start going through some of the analysis, kind of the detailed analysis. Oh, wait. Sorry. I'm still on this one. I'm sorry. So just a quick overview of kind of the site itself. So again, the property that the existing pump station is in the red box there. You can kind of see the roof of the building, the generators out back and stuff. The green and the red parcels are both city parcels. But another parcel in discussion is a Prescott Park parcel and that's in the purple bounded area But this is overlaid with the hundred-year flood map. So if you look at sort of the site there It's very challenging in terms of citing a critical infrastructure because like we've seen it's it's an area that's inundated within the 100-year floodplain the next site So this is just high level. This is just a kickoff to see to kind of show you what the proposed concept that we'll kind of get through as we kind of go through the details later. We had a few few goals is try to connect the Prescott Park and the Point of Grace cemeteries with the site because right now it's kind of isolated. You have the old La Cava building. You have the pump station. There's it's a little bit disjointed from the rest of the neighborhood. We have some opportunities to kind of improve the intersection safety. It's one of the consistent feedbacks we get with people trying to cross the road near the bridge there. It's not really a safe intersection. There's a need for a new pump station building specifically. So on the previous picture, you saw some of that concrete degradation. So even just the building itself is starting to degrade, the concrete, some of the other structural members and parts of that building. But the concept itself, we kind of went through a process of citing things and all that. And we thought that... The new modern standards make the footprint of a pump station much larger than historical ones would be. Right now we have a lot of hydraulic issues. But if we're using modern standards to ensure reliability and kind of equipment longevity, it's a lot bigger of a footprint. So we started to kind of... paper doll things around and how do we actually fit all these things, all the infrastructure that we need on the site. And it turns out that siting an above ground building is going to be very challenging. So we thought maybe some of the best way of doing it was to have a portion of the building with electrical and generators and stuff be above grade and a portion where the pumps are and stuff be below grade. So they could be kind of still, the space still usable by the public while also having kind of all the necessary equipment and infrastructure on site. So just on this picture here, it shows you a little bit of what looks like a green space, but some of that is underground pump station wetwall areas, and some of it is above-grade control building and generators. And there's some public green space and amenity opportunities on the site, and we work with Terrence to try to kind of look at some initial concepts of what feasibly could happen, but again, this is for discussion as we move forward. All right, so next one, this is just an elevation. This is kind of looking from the Prescott Park side. You see how the yellow building is the generator and electrical building, whereas you look down behind the trees there, there's some green space and some gray, which would be like a paper type thing. That's a below-grade wet wall for the pumps and things like that. So again, you see the building is pretty close to the bridge, but again, if you kind of remember back to the floodplain thing, really the only high spot that's out of the floodplain is closer to the bridge and further out of the ground. so but if you think about the level of the building is the level of the building to protect it from the floodplain so if you moved it further to the center of the site the building still has to stay at the same height so just think about that where it's kind of getting snugged into a slope if not it would just be sticking way out of the ground so it's we tried to use some like reasonable judgment to kind of manage the the visual impacts of a new building Next one. This is looking from kind of that mechanic Street, but from that gate Street side kind of looking up towards the the bridge ramp So again, we tried to hide things with vegetation and stuff. But again, this is just a different perspective All right, now we're over to Terry side of things where we're gonna go through kind of like what how did we get Thanks Eric, so we'll come back and revisit the proposed concept but early on

Oh, excuse me. Early on in the process, we had to identify and eliminate all different alternatives prior to figuring out what that concept looked like. So there's a whole separate process that occurred. First and foremost, we looked at trying to take the existing pump station and moving it towards the downtown. I'll talk through some of the locations that we looked at, but there were several suboptions to that plan. We also looked at relocating the pump station over the river to Pierce Island to try and get it out of that site altogether. And lastly, as we mentioned, there were several different options that we looked at on the existing site, which is very similar to the proposed concept that we presented. But what you see on the right-hand side here is the options considered. We iterated on a lot of different options. We'll run through a few of those just so you're aware. Next slide, please. regards to locating the pump station downtown this is really looking at it's the larger pump station so if you were to move the mechanic street pump station to any other location you still have a lot of local sewers and local infrastructure that needs to remain so regardless you're always going to have a pump station there but in terms of our the effort here we were looking at moving it to any of one of three different locations the paradav parking lot adjacent to the puddle duct puddle dock parking lot and then the memorial bridge parking lot by prescott park None none of these locations ideal necessarily but as part of an analysis to look at this what we learned is we Evaluated this further is that regardless of which location you move it to end up having to reconstruct all those areas in yellow The resulting impact may be a lot more than you'd have just replacing it in its existing location In addition you're talking about significant additional costs for that. So we didn't recommend that option Next slide please So our next option was to relocate this over to the pure silent side on the other side of the channel. Well, and we looked at the primary challenge here is to actually convey the wastewater from where it goes now to the pump station underneath the river. So we looked at a couple of different technologies to be able to accomplish that. One of those was directional drilling. and that was determined to not be feasible because of all the soil and rock conditions below the surface so there's some specifics associated with that technique that made that not feasible or not easily feasible second was to look at micro tunneling so this is actually putting getting down into the bedrock and tunneling a large diameter Channel or large diameter pipe from one side of the channel to the other so this that's what's presented here on this drawing It looks pretty simple, but those are 30 foot diameter shafts that are 80 feet in the ground So that's how deep you got to go in order to maintain bedrock all the way across so that also means a lot of additional infrastructure to connect into those shafts ventilating those shafts order control associated with those shafts and ultimately we determined this wasn't a cost it was cost prohibitive and this was on borderline technically infeasible so this was not recommended So that left us with evaluating the seven options that were on the existing site. And just to reiterate some of what Eric mentioned earlier, here on this site we have the 100-year floodplain in Balut. And as we were looking at the design standards Eric mentioned, this was a 10 million gallon per day facility in the 1960s when it was built. Now it's pumping over 22 million gallons per day. Current design and technical standards make this a much larger building. So we knew that we were looking at the existing site in red, the adjacent site that the city preemptively purchased in 2014, 95 Mechanic Street. and also the area of the Prescott Park parcel. Primarily, one was for the site constraints, meaning we needed more area. The other was because of the elevation. So you can see that area that's the only area that exists in those three parcels that isn't within the 100-year floodplain that we can protect the building is the Prescott Park parcel. So we focused on those three areas in the evaluation. Next slide, please. So when we were looking at these different alternatives, there was three broad categories. The first broad category was to try to reuse some of the existing infrastructure, so the existing Mechanic Street pump station. While it's not ideal for a new full-fledged pump station, we were trying to say, okay, can we use it for part of the facility, knowing that, as Eric mentioned, the building would have to be significantly higher than it is today. So you can see that configuration shown on the left-hand side. In the center here is is the second option which was to put a building or a pump station rather With equipment that could handle flooding. So that's the concept in the middle the green and red is a at-grade access with a pump station below with equipment that can deal with flooding and then you can see the buildings associated with supporting that pump station up adjacent to pierce island road that's all about the elevation of that area and trying to keep them up above that 100 year floodplain And then the third concept was to consolidate as much of the building or consolidate the building into one piece instead of breaking it apart on the site, put it up at the high point. And you can see that on the far right. And you'll see as we look further on the next slides, we're going to go on to what was the next phase, which was rendering, doing some initial renderings. But before that, I just want to note that as we're looking at these different options, we're also considering how they had an impact for the site as a whole, for the neighborhood and the public. Next slide, please. so as we started the initial rent renderings this first one here is the idea of trying to reuse some of the existing infrastructure on the left hand side is standing at the prescott park area looking towards the existing mechanic street pump station and these two buildings you see the one on the left hand side is a control building so this is where you put all the the parts and pieces that you need for the for the station to work the generator the controls all the electrical equipment and then in the background you actually see a version of the existing mechanic street pump station being reused as a screening facility So that facility would be higher. You don't see really anything in the middle. The pump station proposed in this particular configuration is at grade. So it's at the ground. You'll see hatches. And if you look at the picture on the right, you can see a bunch of, in the center, a bunch of small rectangles. Those are the locations that access the building. Those will become more apparent in some of the future renderings. Next slide, please. As we look at this is alternative B. This was idea of consolidating everything into a single single building and Keeping it at the high point of the site rendered Building on the left. I think tells the story there. It is a very large building that goes from the past the bridge abutment to all the way to the intersection likely wouldn't fit by the time we got done designing it so we this one was uh challenging in that sense it's very very limited space available with the constraints of the site to consolidate all the parts and pieces together in a single structure next slide please And this here is the third alternative, which is similar to the proposed concept, but essentially this leaves a pump station at grade in the area of 95 Mechanic Street and part of the Prescott Park parcel. So that facility that's all shown white, you'll see in the future that the hatches are at grade, the rest of the building's underground. And then there's a control building shown on the left-hand side, which is in the form of a colonial to match the surrounding area. And that is brought up to the high point of the site. There's a fair amount of infrastructure that supports that, and we'll review that in a future rendering. Next slide, please. So that brings us back to the proposed concept. So that was kind of the process that we went through. It was a series of different iterations, really. We started off with the boxes, figured out what fit. We had looked at a lot of the information on the existing site, moved to the initial renderings, used those renderings to make some additional decisions. And then we landed on the proposed concept and advanced that a bit more. So we'll go through the different areas here, but generally we made some improvements to the intersection. We provided some landscaping features around the proposed control building, and then there's a green space area surrounding and above the pump station. So next slide, please. You've previously seen these are same renderings as you saw earlier. This is from Prescott Park looking towards mechanic Street As I mentioned, you can't see the pump station necessarily You can see the hatches control buildings on the left and then there's some green space in the area of the pump station Next slide please similar similar rendering shown previously which is from mechanic street looking towards pierce island road one thing to note there is uh there's some existing exterior equipment that will be needed to support the functions of the pump station they include Fuel tank for the generator and also an odor control system It's hard at this stage to show all those parts and pieces and obviously we're showing some mature landscaping here So, you know that that'll be a big part of our consideration is how to screen that facade For that equipment as we look look at this moving forward Next slide please So looking at the conceptual pump station, this is really focused on the two parts. So on the bottom side of this figure on the right, you have a dashed line. That dashed line underneath it is the structure that holds the grinder facility and the pumps. This is what does the work. That equipment is the type that can handle water above in that structure. If it gets water in it, it will be fine it's not going to get damaged they're submersible type pumps they're made for that kind of that kind of condition leading to and from that building are some red lines from the bottom up to the dash line is the gravity sewer bringing wastewater into the facility and then you have the dash lines on the top side which are the force mains connecting to the existing force mains that bring it to pierce island The control building itself sits up high so in order to accommodate the Site features we have some retaining walls. There's a terraced retaining wall in there so that that site can be supported Flat and allow an area for parking and that exterior equipment that I was telling you about the odor control and The the fuel tank. It's also a transformer to the right side of the building Thank you. Looking just to the top side of this, we have the intersection, some proposed intersection improvements. So the idea here was to kind of change the geometry a bit of that area. It can be challenging now with folks driving over the bridge, seeing pedestrians crossing. So we've reconfigured this in a way that it helps to tee up the intersection a bit as best possible, modifies the alignment of the sidewalk and the Prescott Park side, and creates a new sidewalk along Point of Graves on Mechanic Street. So this provides a new crosswalk across the street, allows for someone to walk over to Point of Graves entrance or down towards the green space by the bomb station.

And it buffers the cemetery wall too because where you get snow damage and vehicle traffic right adjacent to that, at least there'll be a buffer away from that. So we've coordinated with the cemetery group and the folks that are working on that. We're working with the cemetery folks and the design for that restoration of the Point of Grave Cemetery. So I think they're reasonably well coordinated at this point.

And then above the pump station, this is an area that is something that could be considered over time. Obviously, the pump station itself can be constructed. Those white rectangles that you see on there are the hatches that are required to access down in the pump station. But the area as a whole could provide a place to reconfigure the existing area for some kind of green space with a number of different features. It could be things like seating, walking paths, raised planters, shrubs. um some kind of surface features that would be amenable to the community so i think that that's kind of this proposed concepts there it's something we can talk about but the intent there is to allow that to be considered over time separate from the pump station Overall timeline, we've already completed the feasibility analysis. That's what's led to the information you see here. The fiscal 27 capital improvements plan has been authorized. Pre-application for the cost of final design and construction has been submitted. and following that there'll be some discussions related to the prescott park parcel on the with the charitable division of the attorney general's office in the november time frame we're looking to conduct um or the summer and in november some public outreach Parallel to some of these efforts, we'll have preliminary design and updated cost opinion for the station. Final design will follow that, and then construction. So it's a long program, but this is a general timeline. That'll pass back to Eric.

Right. So the thought is that at this meeting, we kind of gather some of your feedback and sort of like, are we missing anything? Is there anything big picture wise that we need to consider as part of these analyses? Try to incorporate it in that. the plan is to have two public meetings the thought is uh one in the summer and maybe one after people go back to school the thought was rather than having both clustered in the summer maybe there's a benefit from scheduling so we'll work with the city manager and everyone to kind of do that probably one one at city hall maybe one local to mechanic street we're updating our project portal but we're the likely thing we're going to do for this project is on the project website is have a an option for kind of electronic feedback and stuff if people want to put in comments questions things like that we can gather that from a larger public audience um i think the thought is we'd also go in front of the uh the park committee just to kind of see what opportunities are available kind of present the space because it's it's to some extent it's an open palette where there's a lot of opportunities especially this waterfront um potentially integration with you know prescott park and there's potential for other types of amenities on the site you know we're engineers so we have terence helping us out but ultimately there's there's a lot of opportunities that maybe we haven't even considered and we'd like to get feedback from the community And then the thought is after we gather kind of a public feedback, comments, you know, feedback from the council, kind of package it up, kind of say like, yeah, are we kind of in the ballpark? And then we can kind of bring that into the design phase type thing. So the thought was we kind of summarize kind of the feedback we've gotten from the community and from everyone, send it back as like an informational just to say, hey, this is what we've gotten. We think, are we ready to move forward or do we need further discussion to make sure or iterate on some of the assumptions that we had baked into the project? So... The thought is here. We did a pretty high level kind of we didn't talk too many details So just to give us time to kind of talk through it And I was thinking maybe we can go back to maybe one of the site plans or something and we can kind of talk over that if there's questions comments, hopefully Council cook

What do you anticipate for process with New Hampshire DES for permitting?

Right so we've actually part of this initial phase of items we kind of understanding what the elevations and the height and the spatially where things need to be I think we got a consensus on kind of the minimum height of you know electrical equipment things like that so they're on board with that they've been part of some of the review processes at least initially but as we get into detail design we'd work we'd coordinate with them but it's just going to be an ongoing process we'd submit uh and consult with them because they basically are funding our design phase of this so we already have srf funding for this um all the way through final design and um i know the neighborhood is interested in uh the current house that sits uh the white yes they're on the la cava wharf um do you know when that would be coming down as part of this plan My understanding is that we were going to try to make that concurrent with the project.

But yeah, I mean, it could come down as really as soon as anybody, you know, if there was a lot of desire to make it happen, we could work to get it done sooner than later. The intent was to try not to disrupt the neighborhood, the neighborhood until we had an idea of where we were going. Because we weren't sure if that space was going to be used for structure or something. So we didn't want to create an open space where people really all of a sudden became really attached to the view. And then we had to put something in there. So we wanted to have some idea of what we were going to do before we took it down. But as Eric said, we were looking to try to do it concurrently. with the project um however it's it's not in great shape um it really is not a reusable building um and it it needs to be taken down yeah we do have some uh communication equipment we can relocate that out of there it's just kind of hanging off the side of it and what we didn't mention too is um

With our initial discussions, I think Eversource is interested in kind of rerouting some of their primaries and stuff, so maybe undergrounding some utilities and kind of cleaning up some of the overhead wires in the area, too. So there's aspects of that that we really didn't talk about, but those conversations have been occurring.

Thank you.

Council Member.

I just have some questions around because this is being built into a slope and I see where the parking is sort of next to the building because the building's the only thing that's above grade right so I guess where the fuel tank and the odor of those things all underground it's just hard to tell it was the cars parked right next to it in the picture they have to be above ground so we have people go flood levels and stuff like that so there's like and then there's freeboard on top of it so those were So they're above ground, but they're behind the fencing, is that what I'm getting?

Yeah, they're kind of hidden behind some screening stuff and all that. So I think that's something we need more looks at because, again, it never looks as good.

Well, I'm just thinking a fuel tank at an intersection where you could have.

It'll be well protected. And then this will be buffered by that terrace, too, as well. So trying to get into it. And the other thing we didn't talk about, too, is that that bridge there is it's kind of in the queue for some type of improvements type thing. And the thought is, I think my understanding is the concept is that it would probably would actually move. So construction wise, it would move a half a lane to the north. So then the building would be close to the road now. But long term, it's probably be buffered even further from it as well.

All right. I have another one. The little hatches that get you down into the pump station or actual pump.

those are protected in some way so that we couldn't have children wandering in together right okay they're locked and they're traffic rated so they'd be you could drive a truck over them and do whatever the so the thought is these are simply it would be like driving over any sort of concrete structure or whatever okay and really it's for picking things out we'd drive a like a hoist up and we'd like we'd pull them from above so it's not like ladders with people there is one but it really this would not be a continued occupied space so most of the work would happen in the building above there so it'd be just for periodic inspections just you know quick checks

Thank you.

Councillor Tabor.

I like the aesthetics of this. It's nice to gain the sidewalk along the point of graves, but I would be concerned if we're narrowing that road. pickup trucks with 28-foot boats going across that all the time.

I think because it's configured, I think we did some turning radius stuff with some trucks and all that. I guess if there's something specific, if you want us to overlay that with a fire truck or something.

It might be a good idea to put some cones out on the new route and drag a trailer and have a car coming the other way or...

truck coming the other way those those were taken into consideration yeah there's also large vehicles going down onto mechanic street as well because it's deliveries delivery trucks so we we looked at the turning radius and the road actually shifts a little bit um to gain that bump out um with the green spaces and the new sidewalk so it is You know, we are cognizant of the need to make sure we accommodate vehicles, so it's definitely something that's front and center. I think we overlaid.

I thought Underwood, they overlaid our largest fire truck, I think, is typically what we use for a vehicle. I'll double-check that just to make sure. But again, though, this is a first cut, so we'd have to go through PTS, all the other things. We'd do a full traffic analysis and all the engineering behind it, so...

Council book. Thank you guys. I appreciate all the work that's been done on this. This is certainly a very big project You know, we've seen it coming for a while now and it's in a very sensitive area of town But I am glad to hear that The aesthetics like very good to me. I don't know. I know the rendering always looks a little bit better than maybe you know a finished product But, yeah, I want to make sure we're considering the boat launches over on Pierce Island, so boats will be coming from both areas, you know, cars with trailers. I like that the sidewalks are actually becoming, they seem becoming safer. The sight lines and everything I think are making it a little safer there for pedestrians coming through Prescott Park and stuff. To me, I can't think of another aspect that hasn't been thought of at this point.

yeah that was the big one trying to make sure things were below grade and having some of those terrace walls allows to change the topography a little bit so because you know when you come off a mechanic street and try to make that curve it's a pretty steep curve there so obviously gives us a little bit opportunity to kind of improve that so counselor cook

Sorry to follow on with another question. This is also the site of seven critical parking spots in the neighborhood. With the reconfiguration of the road, would we be losing those or would we retain them? There are four that are about right in this location and then there are another three that are in front of the current pumping station.

Yeah, you want to go back to the site plan? We will lose some likely just because parking that close to the intersection was challenging. We had one, I know there's a couple up higher kind of before you get to the white building from the intersection. Those would be very challenging to keep. I think what we did is we had one there, but I think there's opportunities as you get further down toward the existing pump station itself. We didn't, that picture goes further down that we could look at. Parking spots as well because this was just we weren't looking at like adding or keeping parking in there type thing We just kind of looking at more of the site itself But I think that's something we could look at if that's a community But like need that they really want to maintain all those we can we can definitely look to optimize the best we can I would note that given the recent loss of 17 parking spots in the neighborhood parking is extremely tight and those spaces will be coveted

I'll add that a future iteration will depict a reasonable number of parking spaces we think we can fit. I think we need to also stay away from this crosswalk or the view from it.

And something to be aware of in terms of like structure and parking and stuff. So do you see where that looks like a parking spot? That's actually the foundation wall of like the building itself too. So we're opening that up quite a bit. So I think that's something we can look at is making sure we maximize the opportunities for parking in that area too. And it's that balance too. It's like we know, and then we have to maintain access too because this will be drivable. So if we do have to get equipment in, a lot of the paths are wide and stuff so we could drive on them. So I think that's, we'll emphasize looking at that and making sure we can maximize what we can over there.

Thank you.

i guess to that point so is the road potentially narrowing at all or is it retaining the same width it's going to change i think because it pinches down it's wide it's it's a little bit everything so i think what we try to do is try to maintain a consistent road profile was it what did we do 20 what was it here on closer to 26 but so it was it's pretty close to the original road width

But the road is moving around in the sense the whole thing's moving to one side, and then by teeing up that intersection, you lose overall pavement space in the intersection. So I think, as Eric mentioned, it's a change, but we can get the exact dimensions as we present more on it.

And also to where there's you see a lot of like plantings and stuff in the retaining wall right now You can park off the road on that gravel area kind of adjacent to it that kind of disappears too because we're trying to protect the corner and we have infrastructure there as well, so I Think it's just we'll just have to make sure we specifically emphasize like what we can we can fit in there safely The slide about options says Prescott Park parceled land requires land acquisition and

So as you may be aware When we own property that has restrictions on it, which of course that parcel as you identified it does have restrictions There's a process for doing that and that is the eminent domain process which we do in coordination not coordination in consultation with the Attorney General's Office, the charitable division, along with, given the nature of this, probably the probate court as well in terms of what to do. We've had some initial conversations with the Attorney General's Office, the charitable division, talking about process. For those of you who remember, we had to do this process when we built the renovation and the new addition to the middle school. So we had restricted land that was needed. And so we did eminent domain. We had a guardian ad litem who sits and is kind of like taking the city's role as protector. And that's the role that that person sits in and evaluates the appraisal, makes reports to you in terms of sharing their opinion on the process and whether it's followed and provides that input. And then we go through and figure out, okay, what is the value of our need to use that property, assuming there's a public necessity for it. So that's kind of the process that will happen. So very similar to what we did with the middle school Connie Bean Center, we had the same thing. It was a process for doing that. So we're at the beginning of that process. The thought was let's introduce kind of the work that's been done to date first in terms of looking at all the alternatives. Um, and then kind of get some initial feedback and then we'll come back to you probably with a request to set up a public necessity hearing. So did that first step of the eminent domain and we'll also be going out to get an appraisal. So that's kind of the process.

Thanks. All right. thank you all uh for the presentation i know that there are some folks uh in the uh the public and a lot of interest in this so we'll open it up uh to any public comment now questions and again this is the beginning of the process we will follow a pretty lengthy public process on this but any initial thoughts or feedback would be very helpful at this time

yes it is Francesca hi Francesca Marconi Fernald 177 mechanic Street I understand the need for this project absolutely my obviously my biggest concern is my business and access to it to get my deliveries a lot of my deliveries will approach up the bridge and back all the way down mechanic Street uh track to trail track pepsi pfg dennis foods uh maine shellfish and stuff like that so i'm very concerned about one getting my deliveries because my window of opportunity for my income is very small what you do in the winter doesn't affect me um my other one was i know they're renderings but i'm concerned about the sight line of the one it's on um seven proposed concept rendering of this when you pull up out of mechanic street to the stop sign for the um paris island road it's hard to see now so there's going to be a building to your right and with everybody that speeds over the bridge um might want to take that into consideration i don't know you said something about maybe the bridge moving

long-term type yes but you're right though that that around the corner with the building there so the thought is we are raising the grade and trying to make it so it doesn't ramp up so it's not as high a pitch okay so and that's also why we're changing the geometry a bit too to try to make the sight lines better and also have people crossing not on that side as well because that's also a challenge because you have to pull up and those people cross the road and then they're coming over the bridge yeah you got to put your head on a swivel but i think we have to probably dig into that and that analysis as well just i mean yeah this is a concept you know they put some good effort into trying to make sure the geometry was safer but yeah and and i and i understand it's just it's so that's you know a bunch of ideas flying right now um and the my only other question is is

i mean obviously i'm always concerned about my business and stuff like that but i'm also concerned about a sidewalk on the cemetery side where is that property going to come from that's like the city right away so we're actually shifting the road over so that that was is basically currently paved because right now the pavement goes right up to the wall where the jersey bears yeah so we're shifting it over basically that whole road shifts over a bit okay so like if I'm at the stop sign it's gonna go this way a little bit okay all right that makes sense like with the terracing and stuff trying to change the topography of it to make that okay all right all right that's yeah again my biggest concern is my business I don't I don't I'm gonna say something naughty I don't want to have to invoke yevlin marconi in me i'm a pretty pretty easygoing person and pretty easy to work with but um sometimes you don't want to poke the bear too much i really really love what i do and i'm very conscious of what kind of a small neighborhood that i'm in and i've got great neighbors and Wouldn't do anything to disrupt them and I just so I would expect the same of all of you and I appreciate that Thank you. Any questions for me?

Not yet. I'm sure we will have Portsmouth

since this is the first time i'm seeing your site plan um i do have some questions and just looking at it um first page and your concept uh the concern is uh going below grade so on page six you've got a connection to prescott park and new pump station below grade is that a conflict The next question is on, um, also on page six and on most of your pages, you show a new mechanic street, uh, line coming in. So is that cost included in the 10 million or 20 million that you're looking at? I'm looking at page six and in the back, it's also coming in. Is that coming down mechanic street? And how does that work? um next question is i guess um on the site since there's what what is the cost for rerouting um the current flow through there included or is this going to be done in stages did you do any of that yet and next i'm going to go to some of your uh bonding that's already been done so according to the cip this is listed in fy28 as 10 million and you're gonna look at getting 10 million plus from either the feds or the state can you please elaborate on that Next thing is, if I go to your bonding schedule, this is on page 50. We have already put quite a bit of money out to bond for pump station improvements and actually the mechanic street station. So my question is, where are we on that money? Do we have any left over that can help you out here and pay for this 10 million? I'll just look at some of them that I found. uh bonding for annual sewer lines and pump stations three million uh and in four six twenty one mechanic street pump station uh three three million six next year the and six twenty three twenty two uh again the force main another two million uh six twenty twenty four fy twenty two pump station upgrades seven fifty seven hundred fifty thousand twenty three same the same description eight hundred thousand 25 fy 25 pump station upgrades 700 000 and the new one coming in for next year is uh pump station improvements 500 000. these also go through on your on your bonding expectations going forward with uh in 29 you're asking for 750 and in 31 750 so how how is this flowing into what you've already put on here And how is the money going to work and where are you going to get it? That's my questions.

Thank you Thank you picture Well, I can comment on a couple options in terms of below grade versus above grade pump stations Essentially the gravity sewer comes in at the gravity sewer level So the pump station right now the bottom of it is below sea level and the new one will as well. I Oh, sorry. So the depth of it is the depth of it. It's just a matter of how far that wetwall and building extends above the ground. So we can do it at grade and have like a green space on top, or we can extend the building all the way up. But the wetwall has to go all the way down to make sure that the gravity sewer is a place to go. So the excavation is the excavation depth. And then some of those other ones, those are just other pump station related. We have 22 pump stations, so there's other work that has to happen. So we're trying to keep this one separate from the other projects throughout the city.

To restate that, the pump station and the need to be out of the floodplain is because the pump itself has to be out of the floodplain, or no?

Depends on the type of pump. What I think we're proposing is pumps that are submersible. They can be below the water.

Okay.

The pumps that we have now, though, are below the water, but they're protected because there's a building and it's basically enclosed all the way up, unless it overtops that. But the reality is these pump stations, it's all going by gravity there. So these things are like negative, what's it, negative three, seven, something like that. so that's what the bottom of the pump station currently is is below the water level it's just protected so the water doesn't get in very well so the thought with ours what we're proposing is that the top of that structure it just is a little bit below grade and then we could plant and do stuff above it versus bringing the building all the way so it's just it's we're there's a benefit to that but it's also below water level so there's

okay and then on cost uh maybe a peter question we'll have an updated um cost opinion by the end of january 2027 is that yeah we'll likely be able to give you something even before then i mean a lot of the funding that peter was referring to or monies that are associated with other pumping stations as eric said there's 22 pump stations in the city each of them require upgrades um the force main monies she identified were for the new force main out to the island There's sewer and pump station monies. We have over 100 miles of sewer lines, thousands of manhole structures. So there's a lot of money that's associated with maintaining the overall system, but the pumping station budget includes any of the sewer work around the pump station, the force main and the gravity lines. So those are all considered as part of the big project. we can report back and have a more detailed report in terms of what the existing funding is for the pumping station.

Well, this is going to come as a part of the capital improvement plan that we go through next year.

And we have a good indication that there's state monies, grant monies to be offsetting this.

yeah and we've also spent significant money at the station itself just to get it through the next five years because we've had significant pump failures there's significant degraded equipment so just to get us through this design and construction phase it'll take several years to do that we just have to make sure they can operate through that time frame so there's we we still have to maintain and operate it so that's the problem is it until there's a new facility like we have significant cost to encourage us to keep it going so

thank you for clarifying that because what Peter was saying was mechanic Street says right in your plan so thank you for clarifying she was talking about mechanic Street too I want to thank Francesca I totally agree it's a working waterfront and we have to get big boats down there we have a a 38-foot boat coming in, and we have a 30-foot boat that comes down through there. So the only way they can do it is they do what Francesca does, they back down. I know my neighbor has boats that come in there. I think he has a 29-footer, and so I just encourage you to remember this is a working waterfront. um welcome back terry i uh um i'm sure you wish at this point we did move it off the island um but we didn't so now we're dealing with this i would ask that you really think about um putting the pipes in the waterway We've had numerous issues with them going up on the bridge and over that way As we can remember we've had leaks. We had other things go on and If you have a good wind shear, I'm sure you're gonna have a problem so I would encourage you to really look at the whole concept of of putting them down underneath. I heard the ledge, and I agree with the ledge, but I also know there's a lot of new technology out there that can deal with a lot of those issues. I would also encourage you to think about, do we really want a massive pump station to be our visual as we go across Pierce Island? I've worked hard for years to save Pierce Island. I was able to keep the sewage treatment plant area by some boats and I would just really really worry about the aesthetics of having a building this big right there as people are going over the island I think you're gonna miss a lot of the ambience my other question would be is how come we have to build such a big one I heard new technologies But I also look at the plan you had up there. It was quite small, our current one. And I've been told now for five years, maybe six, that we're having less and less sewage going across to Pierce Island. And so I know that the Pierce Island plant And the new Castilella plant are the only things that are going over to the island. And when they get to the island, it's really all the sewage for the whole city, except for what's up at Pease and Greenland, because that goes to Pease. So it really is the sewage line. So I know we heard about the other 22 plants out there, but these are the two big ones. And I would ask, why do we have to build it so big with all the technology? if you go online you can see a lot of new technology out there but I find this building it looks like it's almost quadruple in size to what we currently have is questionable and it's going to take a lot of that property and instead of the beautification that we see going over it's going to be a big building and no matter how you put lipstick on it it's still going to be a big building So I would encourage you to think about that. Really, let's be truthful and let's use the most modern technology. I would think about using the bridge, and this is the first I'm hearing we're gonna move the bridge. But if we're moving the bridge, then that should be the first and foremost thing before we do any of this. Get that plan so that you can figure out how you're gonna get the pipes across to the other side But those would be my statements to start off with this whole project and I would also Really question targeting the Prescott sisters land Um, you know, we have down in the South end, we've fought for years to keep that the Prescott park, and I don't want to see any inroads and intrusion on that concept. And lastly. There's a cemetery right there. There has been conversation about whether the graves are just only there. So I guess my question would be, has anyone considered that cemetery and what that might mean and how far people might be buried out into the road? And I would like to honor that cemetery. Thank you.

Thank you, Esther. Any comments, Eric, on the size and the float? Sure.

So directional drilling, so trying to get the force made, again, it's trying to get the waste water to the other side. Directional drilling is kind of infeasible on this one because you have ledge that slopes, and then you have the sediment type thing. Trying to go between those is very challenging, so it has to go down 80 feet plus more because the directional drill has to go in like an arc type thing, and then trying to launch it and receive it is... Very challenging in this site because because of around all the other things and then that whole pier area and stuff It's cribbing and there's all sorts of structural supports there that were put in to reinforce that which make it even more challenging So it's technically like almost infeasible to do that And then in terms of why so big big I mean that's as small as we could shrink it That's what we have right now is a generator outside. So this building includes a generator and electrical gear and um it's about as small as we can make it there's a the wet well is massive and i guess if you if you go inside mechanic street when it's really raining and it's actually running the whole pumps are shaking and stuff so wet wells are bigger now because you don't get uh cavitation and weird hydraulics so what happens is there's so much cavitation that these these pumps are shaking and rocking and it's funny if you when you try to get like a retro rebuild on these they kind of laugh when you say hey what's the warranty on this i mean you can't warranty them because the pumps are operating so far like outside what would be like a normal, acceptable environment. Just because they're, when you shoehorn big pumps in there, they create this, you can hear like, it sounds like a straw sucking. It's like, and they vibrate and stuff. So you see these, so it's a very challenging environment for these pumps to operate. And we really, this is very small for a facility of this size. And archeological type of thing, that's definitely something that we're going to have people on site whenever there's earth disturbing activities. Because I, we agree that This is challenging, and we don't know exactly where everything is, so it's going to be a priority, especially working close to any historically and culturally significant areas.

Yeah. Hi, H trace Portsmouth. Um, I'll take up where Esther left off and she's right. Um, there is a question with the cemetery and needless to say, that'll involve ground penetrating radar. That would be the safest and best way to find out whether their bodies before you go digging. Next, the pumping station was built in 1963. So the question is, where does that fit within the scheme of things such as SHPO? And Suzanne, Attorney Woodlands heard all of this before when we rebuilt the intersection going on to Pierce Island. So all the same things that applied to that intersection and the wastewater treatment facility applied to this project. The other question I have is what is the final figure on this? What is the amount of money when you're all said and done? Not when you're applying for a matching grant not when you're going to DES to get more funds. What is the final figure, the gross figure on the plan? And that includes my other situation that I have an issue with is you've got right in the drawings here tonight that there is a new sewer main coming down Mechanic, but you don't say where it starts what to get to the new facilities is it going all the way down mechanic street where is it starting and is all of mechanic street going to end up getting ripped up because that's the lesser of all evils

So what's the red line that was shown on the drawing? Sorry. Basically connects the existing pump station.

All right.

So that red line on there connects the existing pump station itself to the proposed location of the pump station. So that's what that red line is. That's simply a normal sewer line extension on the parcel itself. The force main side of things so right now the existing pump station you have two mains that go out and it goes to a common one and then it goes to the up to the bridge and the rights so we want it we're proposing is putting a parallel line with it so that we have full redundancy because right now we have a single point of failure so you're going to essentially have three lines

So that you can use the two and then put the third in so that you always, yeah, it's redundancy.

One gravity going into the new facility and then basically paralleling the existing force main onto the bridge type thing. So you have two pump pressurized ones and one gravity feeding the facility.

Okay.

Yeah. It's just more of, like, redundancy, right? Because you want to, if you have one problem with the main, you have a full redundancy thing.

Because, remember, there was that forest main issue a few years ago. Sorry.

I can't. It's just we want to make sure we have that firm capacity and that full redundancy so you don't have to bypass and do kind of these temporary facilities. You just kind of run off of the, you know, the infrastructure that's been baked into it.

the other question that's an issue of housekeeping is the odor control has been less than adequate over the last couple of years from pierce island and are we going to have the same issues with odor control only a lot more in the neighborhood's face with this

Yeah, so order control is a challenge, right? So the issues at Pierce Island is I think the anticipation is that the carbon or the odor media would last for five to seven years, and we're seeing that it was consumed in like two years. So we have that in the capital plan now where we have our operating supplies materials have gone up dramatically. So we replace those in a two-year cycle. So we do peas at one year, and then we do Pierce Island the next year, or we split each facility as is. That's now that we know the kind of like odorous loads that we're having that we're kind of baking that into it But yeah, what are controls a thing? So it's like it's because it's front and center. This is we already have odor control at the site The goal is to have less over but again, yes, please But again, though, just hiding it and making sure it's not visually obtrusive is going to be the challenge, I think.

Yeah. With all due respect, let me say I'm the first person to understand what you're trying to do and that it's noble and that it has to get done. You've come to the end of the road with this pumping station. So there has to be a solution that has to be found. The only other thing I would say at the end of the day to the mayor, to the city manager, and to you as city councilors, is that the Prescott sisters gave Prescott Park not to the park festival, but to the people of Portsmouth. And so it's the people of Portsmouth who own in their hearts, in their minds, and technically, with the Attorney General, own the park. So I say to you, if you're going to take that parcel of land for the treatment station, then maybe you should, for the pumping station, maybe you should find another parcel of land to give back to the people of Portsmouth as a small park that's city-owned. And the other thing that you have to think of is where are you moving the bridge to eventually? Because when you go to the Attorney General for that property, maybe you need to think or you've already thought about the land on the other side that you're going to have to ask the Attorney General for to redo the bridge. So all in all, residents of Portsmouth deserve a new park somewhere out of city property and I know that's not something you want to hear but it would go a long way towards making people a lot happier anyway I thank you for your time and I am thrilled to see that Underwood is taking over this project and good to see old faces here and thank you very much Thank You Paige

I'm Joanna Broad, and I live at 122 Mechanic Street, not directly across from the existing pumping station, but a little bit cat a corner to it. So I'm on the corner of Mechanic and Gardner Street, okay? Thank you for considering this. We have lived with that pumping station for the past 20 years. We've dealt with effluent and mold and odor and all kinds of horrible situations with it, including noise. And we're hoping that this will be a remedy for what has in the past been a real problem. It is also very ugly. The city tried to make it pretty for a while and put some trees in front, which a couple of them died. they never got replaced but that's beside the point my issues are many but I want to make sure that we've considered the odor issues and the effluent what I can't figure out from your plans what's happening to the existing station where does that go does that come down does that get repurposed what

Eric, you can answer it, but you've got to promise to speak into the microphone. Joanna, he's not going to face you. I know, I know.

Okay, so maybe I should finish and then he can answer? Sure, that's great.

Okay.

All right. We live on the corner, as I said, of these two streets and we have a rock wall in front of our house. It has been hit repeatedly by trucks and boats being pulled down and people don't see it and it gets knocked down and we have to replace it. You've got the same problem where you're putting this existing station. And I think I speak from many people that that needs to be a consideration when you plan this new structure if it's to happen. The other thing is people go over that bridge way too fast. And that's a consideration. You might want to consider speed bumps or something, but it really is a nightmare sometimes. Okay, my issue again is construction. How is it going to affect the historic houses that line that street? When some property was being done or some construction was being done a number of years ago at the pumping station, it affected our interior and it caused some big cracks in our dining room. And so the question is, how are we going to, there's going to be all kinds of construction going on and how has that, how will that affect the houses, the historic houses that line that street? and i i can't answer that but um i know like paige i wanted to know about the new sewer main i think you've explained it it's very confusing i'll ask paige to explain it to me later and the secondary structure there's no rendering uh what is that supposed to look like i i didn't get uh you've got the big structure on the corner And then I presume a replacement of some sort that will either be partially underground or underground, or if there's something on top, what is that going to look like?

yeah so yeah there's joanne are you is that i think that's all my questions thank you all right i'll go through a couple of these so uh we didn't render the below grade structure because when you're looking at it it's really just the ground and then you have some hatches on it type thing so essentially it's a concrete box below grade and then those hatches are kind of little chimneys that are so you have some soil above it but really all you're going to see is whatever we whatever is chosen to be like the surface restoration and a couple hatches sporadic around there so it's there's not a lot to see other than like what we can imagine sort of landscaping wise and restoration wise that's reassuring yeah and then the building itself with this concept that building goes away it's entirely gone so it's it would basically that would be plantings it could be any number of other things and how that surface is restored so that and that's the the benefit of not trying to repurpose that building is that it essentially doesn't exist and it opens up this real estate for yeah whether that's other uses art opportunity any number of other public benefits or amenities okay um yeah the goal odor is definitely that's going to be one of our critical things i think it's not the again i think we understand sort of the odor loads now um so sizing that maintainability and replacing the carbon on a frequent interval i think that's a priority for us um and then yeah armoring kind of turning movements so like corners and things like that so that'll be a priority and and we have retaining walls but there there'll probably be some structured large boulders or other things where we try to protect you know people from like getting off and being adventurous into the the bushes and the greenery and stuff like that so and then speed control i think that i don't know if we've looked at raised crossings and stuff so some of these we have to coordinate with emergency services and other things like that and what's acceptable um i think moving the crossing away from the bridge gives more time for people to react even if they are going fast so the thought is but i think that's that's a discussion to have because i know you know speed bumps are horrible but yeah so there's we're balancing like kind of public safety side of things where the public safety on like you know speed and other things so I think that's that's a whole conversation that we have to have and it's it's one that there's you know every different parties have different opinions and needs so I can't guarantee anything on that one so but I think that's a discussion we will have okay all right and in terms of the construction I mean it's a big you're gonna have big jackhammers and trucks and all kinds of It's hard to say exactly how it is. But with the city project what I think we'll do is Articulate further about the construction and the sequencing at future public meetings more information to share Because if it's restricting means and methods or other things like that Then those are things we'd have to have discussions with because there's a cost kind of benefit analysis and you know private construction Sometimes doesn't have the same level of requirements that like the city will follow during construction.

Great. Well, thank you. Thanks, Joanna

Hi, Kyle Lachance, South School Street, also new president of Friends of the South End.

Congrats.

Thanks. So first, I'd like to say that I will be very happy to see what I not so affectionately call the rat house come down. So I'm looking forward to that White House being brought down. So question about the green space. Is that actually going to be accessible or is it going to be fenced off to protect the pump house and the other

The goal is it's a public amenities successful that in fact would then replace what is being taken away in the Prescott Park Correct it so It's the goal is to basically be able to provide some public amenities or benefits on top of just having a pump station Whereas right now you can access the water, but there are fencing areas and stuff The goal is to try to have the above-grade stuff Contains in screens as best we can and then the rest of it would be kind of a multi-use space so it could be used for public benefit and the and then the city from time to time would have to access some of those things uh or whatnot so but the intent is not to fence it in because it's a waterfront it's you know not everyone lives on the water so having some ability to access the waterfront is is one of our goals of the project so

then the next thing is the sidewalk concern so currently there's no sidewalk on either side and now it looks like there's gonna be a sidewalk on the right then a crosswalk and then another sidewalk at the same time the cemetery committee is going to be rebuilding the rock wall at the point of graves and so my concern is what is the height of that rock wall because I'm not sure if that and Peter maybe you can You can correct me, but I'm not sure if that's been determined, what the height is. But being only 5'1", when I come around the corner, it's very hard for cars to see around that rock wall and i don't see that that crosswalk has actually been repositioned at all just looks like there's a sidewalk and then there's going to be a little bit of space and then the crosswalk so i'm concerned that there's still not great visibility when you're coming up mechanic street from marcy And then I'm wondering if it's possible to actually put in a crosswalk sign that you could push a button and you have the flashing lights as we have on a couple of places along. There's one on South Street. If that's something that would be considered.

think we'll take all of um in terms of you know it sounds like we're balancing a lot of of safety um as well as access you know that's the first thing i thought of when i thought of like a raised hump or something like that that it's going to be a lot harder to get a boat trailer around something like that so being able to balance those things is probably going to be a separate working session that we have where we hear you know back from this or at pts where this is discussed um you know at length with a lot of public input but those are kind of things that are not necessarily in conflict but the the harder you make it the safer you make it but it also you know could prevent some vehicles that can currently access that place accessing it and we don't want to be able to we don't want to do that as well but i think that there is as identified here a lot of things that we're going to look at from a a safety standpoint and in trying to take a situation that's not ideal at the moment because of traffic speeds and sight lines and improve it without you know necessarily saying that it's going to be the best it can because we're still going to have to put a pump station somewhere in that vicinity thank you thanks kyle and congrats any other speakers we're a little late for the meeting but happy to go over on this right well i want to thank everybody that that came out um and um i think there's some a lot of follow-ups uh we'll try to get those questions and answers on to potentially the the project page because i think that you know since we do the project page it's a great place for people to if they don't have page's cell phone number to be able to uh call and get those uh get those answers um you know one thing that we didn't touch on uh suzanne tonight was uh whether this would have to go through you know the 106 process if this is a historically significant site uh you know i'm trying to remember you know when they built the or the unitil if that's a part of the the facility that's on prescott parkland or if that's separate from that so still more to discuss at a later time you know what that actually means uh for all of this uh but look forward to the the conversations and appreciate everybody that came out in this really know big important project um that's you know it's with a lot of folks that are uh with a lot of eyes so look forward to to doing a great job on this and appreciate you know it off to a pretty decent start here to be able to have this conversation with everybody here so thank you and we will start the meeting