WMAC Meeting Minutes August 12, 2010

Attendees:  David Crosby, Chair; Anne Carney, Bob Weeks, Rory McGregor

Guests:  Eric Hooper – Superintendent, DPW

The meeting was called to order at 7:55 PM

0.        The approval of minutes of the meeting of July 22, 2010 was postponed since a quorum of those who attended that meeting was not present. The minutes will be approved at the next meeting.

1.       Continue evaluation of Sharon Water Capital Projects:  the following projects will be evaluated under the Growth and Enhancement criteria. The 50%/50% allocation between Financial Returns and Alignment with UTILITY X Strategic Goals should be reviewed.

#21 – Development of Storm water Utility (capital cost of $170,000).  Find and implement projects, compliance with the Water Management Act, Coordination/Modification.  There was a lot of discussion about financial returns on a storm water utility. Some of the issues are: How much money do you want to generate? What do you assess those without a storm water asset in front of or on their property? Do they pay less?  The theory is that if you use it you pay for the capital asset.  It would be a hard sell for someone without the asset to be asked to pay for it.  Eric said that this topic has not been researched to the amount that would be necessary before implementation.  Currently, street sweeping and catch basin cleaning is in the enterprise account and costs about $90,000 to $100,000.  This would be a number 2 under the financial returns criteria. There was discussion about what was included in the $170,000 seed money.  Basically it covers paying for a consultant to set up the utility, creating an oversight committee and setting up a system of assessment.  If there is revenue over and above the costs is it profit for the water department? More information is needed.

At this point discussion ensued on whether the Water Advisory Committee would expand its role into wastewater and storm water drainage issues.  The consensus was yes since the basic goal of the committee is to maintain the health of the aquifers.  Storm water management provides a method to recharge the aquifers.  The issue is not the quantity of water but when it occurs and its intensity.  It is a matter of timing and how rainfall can be captured to the town’s benefit.  The committee also discussed whether the $170,000 should be a capital request or included in the water department budget.  It was noted that commercial sites are part of the commercial development plan. Under the criteria of Alignment with Water Department Goals the committee felt that projects in the center of town would align better than projects on streets such as Eisenhower Drive.  There was discussion of DEP requirements and the committee felt that the only way to get more capacity would be to set up recharge areas.  A topic to be revisited is what the financial return on conservation efforts is.  Could conservation offset the need for a MWRA connection or a new well? The conclusion on project #21 was a weighted financial & strategic alignment score of 3.5 and a weighted project impact score of 2.0.

Before getting into project #22 Rory made a public service announcement that there will be an Energy Fair at the High School on Sept. 25th and Nancy is looking for volunteers.

 

Draft minutes 8/12/10 continued

#22 – Demand Management -Water Conservation Program ($70,000) includes rebates on       toilets, washing machines, NEPRA etc.  The question was how do we maintain spending level and get bang for the buck.  Problems with low flow toilets were discussed. The weighted financial & strategic alignment score is 3.5 and the weighted project impact score is 1.96.

2.       Report of the Water Department:

Eric said that water revenue seems a bit low but part of that is due to water bills being sent out a little late.  These bills did not include the time the ban was in effect. It is too early to determine how much revenue will actually be lost due to the ban. Some of the loss will be offset by the higher rates. He also said that a large leak on Billings Street was found along with smaller leaks on Gannet, Mallard, Bradford and Dunbar.  Leaks are being fixed within two days of discovery.  There is still 15% unaccounted for water and Eric would like that to go down under 10%. The water ban will probably be lifted within the next two weeks. Dave commented that he had read an article that said an alternative to constantly repairing leaks was to manage the pressure on the pipes so that pressure was not being pushed to the next weak link in the line.  This idea will be discussed at a future meeting.

Dave scheduled the next meetings for September 2, 2010 and September 16, 2010. He suggested that the members review the remaining projects and try to score them so that the committee can move more rapidly through discussion. The plan is to finish rating the projects at the meeting on the 2nd and review all the projects on the 16th.

 

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Anne Carney