Water Resources Advisory Board -Waste Water Management Planning Committee
Joint Discussion of 8/8/05
Present were Chair Weiss, Co-Chair Whitmore, and members Lightfoot, Williams, Nugent, Sullivan, Holt, Olthof, Sandler, Wickson and Bayne.
The minutes of the meeting of 7/11/05 were approved as written.
The next meeting will be moved from Sept. 12 to Sept. 19, and held at 2 p.m. rather than at 3, at the police station.
Re Windmill Weekend:
Weiss will ask Environmental Partners for some appropriate educational material to use at the WRAB-WWMPC display.
Bayne will prepare a pond study display.
Williams proposed the production of mugs which promote interest in and raise funds for the ponds; these could be sold at Windmill Weekend and other venues. Williams is willing to fund the production personally, and the artwork would be donated by her husband, artist Bob Bylaska. The idea was put on hold as the members felt there are too many other groups trying to raise money by selling mugs, some of these not very successfully.
Weiss, Whitmore and Olthof reported on the progress of the municipal well study project.
A status report was issued on 2/14/05 by Bennett and O’Reilly, Eastham’s current landfill monitoring firm. From a reading of the report, Weiss understands the following:
There is contamination emanating from the landfill.
Eight wells in the Moll’s Pond study area have shown a measureable level of volatile organic chemicals.
Some contamination has been detected in the well head protection area west of the landfill, toward route six.
Currently, if a well shows 0-50% of the state standard safe limit for drinking water of a specific VOC, the owners of the well receive bottled water from the Town, and the well is monitored quarterly. If four consecutive quarterly samples detect no VOC’s, the well is removed from the contaminated list.
If the well shows 50-100% of the state standard, the well is treated by a carbon filtration system. There is one well in this category.
The joint group will ask Bennett and O’Reilly to visit a future meeting to explain the procedure they are following and to confirm the previously stated understanding.
The central question for Environmental Partners is: If the Town sees this situation as a serious problem, what kind of system should be installed and where could it be safely placed?
Unanswered questions remain:
Vanderhoef had reported that the annual cost of monitoring the landfill and the Moll’s Pond area wells, and supplying water and carbon treatment, is $150,000. The annual cost of a municipal well, and how it would be apportioned, is unknown at this time.
Fully half of the Moll’s Pond study area homeowners have not supplied samples for testing. Why not?
Members were not agreed that the immediate problem in the Moll’s Pond study area is pressing enough to require a municipal well. In general, Olthof and Holt felt the concentrations in 7 of the 8 wells are very low; Holt felt they are too low to be a convincing argument for the installation of a municipal well. However, knowing that housing development, formal landscaping, and nitrogen levels along route 6 are all increasing, and that the Town has a capped landfill, members agreed that it is appropriate to support the long term municipal well planning process which this study initiates.
Holt suggested that Gussie McKussick of Orleans be invited to describe the problems Orleans has had, and whether earlier action might have been cost effective there.
The group agreed that it appears now that the Sept. 19 town meeting is too early to have adequate answers to these questions. Weiss was asked to urge the Board of Selectmen to wait to bring a well development article to Town Meeting until the previous questions are answered, especially those regarding cost.
Weiss, Whitmore and Olthof reported on their meetings with the six respondents to the RFP for waste water management planning. All agreed that all six could do the job adequately, but that Stearns and Wheeler appeared to be best over all. Although their time frame for completing the task is longer than the others, they have very impressive skills in public outreach.
Regarding the long term well nitrogen testing, Weiss was able to acquire the fiscal 2003-2005 data from Americorp volunteer Michelle Wood before she graduated.
No vials have been distributed for the second 3 year cycle of testing because Crowley has not yet been able to hire the assistant authorized by Town Meeting. The lack of an assistant for Crowley has slowed the important work of well testing and water quality work. The group urged Weiss to request the Town hire someone for this position as soon as possible.
Sandy Bayne, clerk
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