March 4, 2020 Sewer Committee Meeting Notes

Town of Ballston Sewer Committee Meeting

March 4, 2020

Notes taken by a town resident

In Attendance:

Eric Connolly, Town Supervisor

Ed Hernandez, Adirondack Mountain Engineering (Project Engineer)

Jeannette Borthwick, Ballston Financial Administrator

Chair Drew Hamelink, Chairman

Judy Brodeur, Committee Member Rep from Clifton Park

Richard Doyle, Committee Member and on the Saratoga Co. Sewer Comm.

Wes DeVoe, Committee Member

Tom McCarthy, Town of Clifton Park Attorney

Debra Kaelin, Town Attorney

Matt Chauvin, Ianniello & Anderson, P.C. Sewer Legal Council

Members of the general public

This a working meeting of the Sewer Committee.  The meeting is open to the public for observation.

Chair Drew Hamelink opened the meeting at 4:15

Ballston Lake Sewer Project

Finance

Jeanette Borthwick: I had a conversation with Robert Armitage at Environmental Facilities Corporation the CT Male invoices that had received and been paid from the general funds last year for the re-bid and the grant work.  He said we need to forward a copy of the contract along with the invoices to EFC and we should be able to get reimbursement for that and return money to the general fund.

Legal

Matt Chauvin:   Nothing new that we have not discussed previously at this time.   If you have questions as you go, we can certainly chime in.

Grant Status

I had a conversation the other day with a woman from DEC regarding the status of the of the grant basically she said that they were they were running a number of weeks late that it was still over at the review was still over at the Comptroller's office and that this particular grant was not dependent on current state funding. It is something that has already been funded and she seemed I would say extremely confident that it was simply a matter of time before the comptroller's approval would come through.

Jeanette Borthwick:  basically, what we learned there is a process and it is in process. In other words, the 5 million is part of something like 92 million (a larger allocation) and that has been already set aside and it is just a matter of process and everybody doing their sign off etc. 

Debra Kaelin:  Yes, and she could not give a time when.

Wes DeVoe:   Debra, Is it still your position that we should not do anything until we get the actual letter?

Debra Kaelin: I have been taking a very conservative view in terms of “until you see it on the dotted line” that we have these five million dollars.  Certainly, after this phone call, I felt much more confident that it was simply just a matter of time.  I think one of the questions and certainly this is really a town board discussion of whether that resolution to increase the project to include the grant moves forward now or not.

We DeVoe:  I am still trying to get an answer. Should we push for a resolution?

Debra Kaelin:  That is certainly a decision the town board has to make whether it goes on the agenda of the town board or not.  We still do not have the definitive letter.  I will have Tom and Matt weigh in about this also.

Matt Chauvin:  I do not disagree with Debra’s position.  My concern is that the letter that we received in January with regard to the grant stated that there will be up to five million dollars available.  It does not give a specific allocation of the five million and whether it is all to us or if there are other applicants that are receiving a portion thereof or if they might choose to grant less to us.  From a legal perspective, the fact that they included that qualifying language gives me pause.  What would we do if we do not get all five million?

Jeanette Borthwick:  My understanding and interpretation of that is that up to 5 million means if we need all of it.  So that if we do not expend all of it, they will only give us what we need.

Matt Chauvin:  I understand that but that is not in the correspondence.  It says you will be eligible for “up to” and subject to the comptroller’s approval which we have not gotten.  So, what I would suggest is that a prudent course of action and again leaving that up to the board, there is a series of steps that have to be taken before you can formally apply anyway so all of that work can be done as long as you are comfortable enough ahead of time to have that application ready fired off as soon as you get written approval.  That may be the most prudent middle ground.  There is a lot of leg work that has to be done before the formal application process can be completed.  All of that can be accomplished now. As soon as you get the formal written letter there is a series of steps outlined in the January letter that we received that must be complied with before the funding can be released to us.

Jeanette Borthwick:  that is the gateway budget.  We did speak with Jim Thatcher at CT Male because he did the grant work for us and he is very familiar with that entire process and would be available to do that for us.

Debra Kaelin:  My understanding from my conversation with DEC is that you can prepare all this stuff, but you cannot upload it until you have the Comptroller's letter with the grant number.  You need the grant number to get into the gateway.

Matt Chauvin:  Tom, that is what we discussed last week, and we were both on the same page.

Tom McCarthy: yes

Dick Doyle: My concern is to ensure that the town wants that grant and we need that grant and make sure it does not slip through the cracks somewhere.

Matt Chauvin:  I do not know what else you could do.  There has been a formal application made. We have done everything we can do to apply for the funding and just have to wait for it to be released.

Debra Kaelin:  We have a letter on the 2.5-million-dollar grant which states you have been awarded and then there is a sign off place for the supervisor’s signature.  This is a different grant and has a process.

Ed Hernandez: Matt, do you see the town obligating themselves to anything by creating a dual path by where you would proceed with the public hearing because there is a 60-90 process to do a public hearing, supplemental bond and it could be even longer if there is a vote. Does it make sense to proceed with that while all this other stuff is going on?  You are not necessarily obligating yourself to anything because you can make it contingent on the funding.

Matt Chauvin: I have not thought about it in that way.  How do you do a contingent resolution based on a contingency?  It is subject to a permissive referendum so you will not know if you trigger the referendum.  You would be making a resolution contingent upon receiving the funding and then you would do a permissive referendum. You are almost making it longer that way because you are building in a contingency in a resolution, so it is subject to an increase in the funding amount if you do not get the grant. 

Ed Hernandez:  I was looking at it differently.  You are still passing the supplemental bond resolution, you're just not moving forward with the bonds, or funding the project until that closes.  A lot of the EFC funds that you still have not closed on for some of the financing and the size of the DC is contingent on that bond resolution in place before they even proceed with that process. It something you have to get done before you can close on the funding.  It is almost like the chicken and the egg kind of thing.

Matt Chauvin:  I do not see a reason not to other than “what if”. The what if is the issue.  I do not know where we would be left if we do not get that funding.

Ed Hernandez:  You would just not move forward.

Matt Chauvin: yes, but you would have expended additional funds at that point on bond council doing the work on legal. So, the approximately 850 thousand that you would have to pay back to EFC you would not be drawing on, but you would be accruing additional costs.

Ed Hernandez:  Do you see the bond resolution creating a lot of work?

Matt Chauvin: No, not at all.

Supervisor Connolly: But if there is a permissive referendum, you would be driving it up even more.  Not a good course of action.

Atty Matt Chauvin: That is what I would worry about.

Wes DeVoe:  Matt, would you be doing this work?

Atty Matt Chauvin:  No, Bond Council would handle that.

Atty Debra Kaelin:  Hodgson Russ, LLP is Bond Council.

Chair Drew Hamelink:  Unfortunately, this is where we are at.

Grinder Pumps

Chair Drew Hamelink: I have some more grinder pump information to share. I did not make copies, but I will get this up on ballstonsewers.org for everyone.  I have cost information from the distributor.  I was thinking this is a couple years down the road and I was not pushing for this but now since there have been a lot of residents asking about cost and warranties I did get a letter.  In terms of reliability, there has been stories out there that these things last 5 or 6 years and have to be completely replaced.  Environment One basically says that they are designed for 25 year or longer service life. They have data that reports time between service calls is about 8-10 years. The current cost (list price) of the Saratoga County Standard is $5,334.43. Environment One has offered us a sliding scale of discounts.  The first year starting at a 30% discount (which would be $3,734.06), 20% second year (4267.54), 15% third year ($4534.27), and 10% fourth year ($4,800.98).  They are giving a 5-year warranty.

Judy Brodeur:  On the grinder pump, do we have any idea of what the price increase will be between now and the time we do the installation?  How much will the cost go up?

Chair Drew Hamelink:  I did not ask that. I assume there could be.

Judy Brodeur: When we started to hear numbers 5 years ago it was more in the range of what it is with this discount, about 3500.

Ed Hernandez:  3500 was with the discount.

Wes DeVoe:  there was always a discount. 

Supervisor Connolly:  We have had a resident reach out and inquire if the town has looked into any programs or grant money that could help residents that are in need of assistance with the cost of grinder pump and hook up.  I wanted to put on the record that Drew and I have talked about and it is something that we need to hold off for now but are going to look for that for the residents. God willing there will be some money to help those who are in need.  

Brighteners

Chair Drew Hamelink:  Couple years ago,  Dave Pearse a fellow with the Association that deals with water quality issues in the lake had a professor from SUNY ESF come with a boat and do some testing this is just a page out of a long report that they did (showing a map to the committee) The board off the boat goes around the periphery of  the lake and it draws water into the boat and tests for any number of parameters.   Brighteners are the one that is of particular interest. The reason that it is of interest is because when someone does their laundry the detergent has brighteners in it that makes your clothes nice.  That goes into the same septic tank as sewage. Dave Pierce goes around and takes water samples and then drives to Lake George and has them tested for coliform.  It is labor intensive; the town pays for that and it is expensive.   Obviously, it is limited.  This is testing by proxy.  The boat can very easily test for that because those chemicals flouress.  You can take a water sample and put a black light on it and if it has brighteners it will flouesses.  The boat went around the lake periphery. Of note is the wide area on the east side in the Town of Ballston and the Eastside Drive in the Town of Clifton Park where it is really lit up bright red showing evidence that there era brighteners in the water.  Disclaimer, I am not claiming that it shows coliform bacteria. What it shows is that chemicals from septic tanks are feeding into the lake. So, this is evidence that chemicals are getting into the lake from septics.

Supervisor Connolly:  In the write up that Dr. Pearce did, he stated that the report should be considered preliminary science not empirical I believe.

Chair Drew Hamelink:  I am not sure if he said that or the professor.

Supervisor Connolly:  If you look at the map and find Eastside Drive you see it is at the bottom left (pointing to the map) and also see the dotted line that represents the town lines.  It shows the concentration of brighteners in that Eastside Drive area which is in the town of Clifton Park.  When this sewer district was formed, Clifton Park was not mandated to hook up to the Ballston Lake Sewer System.  They are required to pay the annual fee but not hook up.  We will likely continue to have pollutants there in the town of Clifton Park where we have not handled the issue.  I was on the phone with Phil Barret for almost an hour and I was not mad at him, but I was frustrated that we might spend 17.5 million dollars on a system that leaves a gap. I am not satisfied with that in any way.  I asked Supervisor Barrett if there was any way we could close that loop?  He did say there was a law in the books that says they can test for septics and if the septic is deemed to fail that the law requires them to hook up to the nearest public utility.

Chair Drew Hamelink:  In the referendum ⅔ of the Clifton Park people in that district voted for it.  I would be reasonably optimistic that those people would be interested in connecting. There was a separate referendum for Clifton Park.  I am further hoping that with the 30% discount in the first year, people on the cusp of deciding whether or not to would be motivated to hook up.

BNU Note:

The sewer committee has posted just part of the study on the ballstonsewers.org so we cannot review the entire study mentioned.  They did include the map and the following text directly from the report:

“On August 25th, 2015 Dave Pearce and Greg Boyer conducted a brief survey of Ballston Lake using a continuous water sampler. This represents new technology never before applied in New York State and results of this sampler should be considered as preliminary. Basically, water is drawn into the ESF boat via a tube suspended through the forward wet well. This intake has a functional depth of approximately 18-24 inches. Flow is directed through a YSI 6600 sonde equipped with chlorophyll, conductivity, temperature and pigment sensors, and a Turner Designs C6 sonde equipped with chlorophyll, phycocyanin, phycoerythrin, dissolved organic substances, optical brighteners and turbidity. All were linked by GPS to the position of the boat. Boat speed averaged between 4-5 knots during sampling or about every 50 ft.”

This is the map in the report showing where the brighteners were detected as indicated with red dots and Chromophoric Dissolved Organic Matter which occurs naturally in aquatic environments and is a complex mixture of many hundreds to thousands of individual unique organic matter molecules.

Scientific studies such as experiments, and analyses depend on the research and questions being answered.  There is no such research included in  the mentioned report that the dwellings around the like have laundry washing machines or any investigation to whether the actual effluent from the washing machine is properly going into a septic system in accordance with the New York State wastewater treatment standard for individual household septic systems such as a conventional tank leach field septic systems, raised septic systems, septic mound systems, intermittent sand filter systems, evaporation-transpiration septic systems and other alternative septic system designs. Unfortunately, sixty years ago it was not uncommon to dump gray water onto lawns or into the landscaping. It was all the rage as a recycling method back in the late 60s and early 70s. It helped green up the plants and it avoided adding laundry water to older septic systems, possibly overwhelming them.  It is now not in code. We have seen no record that any research was done to find out if the old camps and homes built before the rules changed have been modified to meet today’s requirements.

If there is a failing septic and the town is aware of it or a town committee member then the proper steps need to be addressed.  If the town fails to act as Board of Health, then the proper State agencies need to be notified. You can report septic violations by email to codes@dos.ny.gov.  Also, there are many circumstances which could cause false positive results from materials that fluoresce in the water.  When a sample of water that contains brighteners is exposed to ultraviolet light it fluoresces or glows and it will also glow if coarse organic materials are in the water like plants and fallen leaves as they break down or tannins and lignins which contain naturally fluorescing materials to name a few.  

Meeting notes continued:

Supervisor Connolly:  If there are hardships, I would like to see some help for that.

Ed Hernandez:  When you are ready to move forward with the hardship issue, EOne has a lot of employees in the Town of Ballston, they are very local and very community based and I think we could get them to participate or subsidize those pumps for some of the overall program for hardships.

Wes Devoe:  Both towns act as the Board of Health.  In the town and in Clifton Park if there are issues, I have been a member of the Ballston Lake Improvement Association for multiple years.  There are some issues in both towns where you actually have sewage in the streets.  Some of that has not been documented but it is quite easily done.

BNU Note:

Wes DeVoe is the President of the Ballston Lake Improvement Association (BLIA).  Very disturbing information that he has knowledge of sewage leaks and part of BLIA mission is to protect the lake.  If the association that was formed to improve the lake has known about illegal pollution issues and have not properly reported it, then how are they protecting the lake?

Also as member of the Sewer Committee who recently posted on ballstonsewers.org an answer to a resident’s question about this, they stated: “If there is evidence to support the allegation that raw sewage is being pumped into the lake it should be immediately forwarded to either the Town of Clifton Park or the Town of Ballston as appropriate who would investigate acting as the Health Department.”  Wes DeVoe knows about sewage in the streets as stated above so hopefully he will report this.

Construction Management

Supervisor Connolly:  We are looking at Ed’s proposal from Adirondack Mountain Engineering in addition to getting two other proposals.  Involves inspection fees, etc. and once we get that data in the board can make a decision.

Chair Drew Hamelink:  I would like to comment on that.  I have two major concerns with bringing somebody new in at this stage in the project. 1.) History:  over the last several years, particularly working on easements I can remember major discussions with residents concerned about a line of trees along their property being cut down and one woman was concerned about a stonewall her late husband built. My concern is that there is an awful lot of history that is not necessarily written down in formal engineering drawings.  If we switch horses that may be out the door. And 2.) Motivation: Their reputation is on the line. Who would be more driven to make sure the installation is done property then the guy that would be blamed if it is done wrong?  I have never done a sewer project before, but I have done a lot of IT projects and when you have multiple vendors working, what happens when something goes wrong?  One guy is going to blame it on the other guy, and I can see a situation where one guy will blame it on the design and the designer is going to blame it on the installation.  That is the concern I have about a major shift.  If it turns out that we have cost issues with AME proposal, then that is something we all have to be concerned about.

Dick Doyle:  I have the same take.  I have certainly done a lot of work with the county and as planning board chair dealing with the contractors for most of the sewer lines in the town of Ballston.  Mostly with my experience at the county level I think it is a concern. It is a concern because the incoming firm does not have the time or take the time to actually do a thorough review. Much of this has been done over the years.  It is a long program and we have worked with the people, worked with the contractors getting estimates.  I think once you do that, they have no commitment and it would be easy for the new firm to go with the contractor's opinion on what the plan meant. AME can say no, here is all the things we did.  For example, the discussion of the rock. The comments I have heard about that is we did not do anything. That is not really true, we did more than people usually do.  We know what the rock is, do we know all of it? No, but we have an idea of what it is.  I think this could be an escalation in cost.  Change notices are the worst thing one could have in a construction job.  I have worked at both ends.  I Have been a supplier at GE and I have also been on the other end of “taking you to cleaners” if you will.  So never do that.  To me, it never seems to work.  If it is a huge difference in cost, we will have to include that.  There is no learning curve with AME. Someone will have to sit down and read over the plan, drawings and I did it and it takes 20-30 hours and I know the system.

Ed Hernandez:  I am biased as well but just to comment on this and add the concerns I have.  We have very specific definitions of what rock is. Rock is complicated and we have very specific detailed definitions of what it is. We have very strict pay limits in our contracts and in our details. AME construction inspectors are familiar with the way we bid projects out, the pay limits, and how we estimate quantities. Our staff is familiar with how we set up our documents and the bid document is 700 pages and is not something you learn overnight. It takes years to develop those documents and improve them.  Our field staff helped do that and is familiar with all the documents and knowing all the nuances.  By knowing that, they will know if somebody is paying for rocks or trench widths and shouldn't be etc. I do not want people pointing fingers at us saying they screwed up the design.

Dick Doyle:  My experience with AME and Delaware Engineering before that is the work, they did over at the sewer plant.  We went through a 44-million-dollar expansion.  We dug through rock, we put in huge irrigation tanks and that went without any problems at all.  There were five contractors working on it and it took years, but it all went well.  For example, finishing up a side wall and the chemicals that you have to put in before you pour that particular wall, we worked all through that and that went well.  We went through change notices; I was approving change notices.  I had that experience and can relate to rock excavation.

Wes DeVoe:  I agree but I am not an engineer.  I worked for GE for multiple years on many large projects and observed scheduling, costs and what have you and my observation is when you change something it does two things: 1.) it increases cost 2.) it makes delays.

Because we have a contingency which I think is the right number would be increasing our chances of over running cost.

Meeting adjourned at 5:07

Any questions about the Ballston Lake Sewer Project can be emailed to econnolly@townofballstonny.org and he will forward them to the committee.

BNU encourages homeowners within the Ballston Lake Sewer District to stay informed and have a voice in this 17.5-million-dollar project to which each homeowner pays an annual debt payment for 30 years plus the cost of mandatory hook up and yearly service costs.

The sewer committee is posting residents questions and the response answers online to ballstonsewers.org

They have also chosen to post letters without questions that are in favor of this project.

If you would like to submit a letter not in favor of this project so both sides are heard, you may email it to econnolly@townofballstonny.org

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