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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - 03/04/2013IMA Study Group Meeting Mansfield — Foxborough- Norton March 4, 2013 6:OOPM (At Mansfield Town Hall) Members: Mansfield: Lee Azinheira George Dentino Foxborough: Bill Euerle Roger Hill Norton Diane McElligott Luke Grant Also in Attendance: Jay Barrows, State Representative Bill Ross, Mansfield David Young, CDM Smith Fran Yanuskiewicz, WSE Dan Garson W&C Richard Pacella, Foxborough W&S Bob Swanson, Foxborough Bob Bell, AECOM Discussions: The following is a brief summary of discussions: 1. Approve Previous Meeting Minutes Minutes from 2-19-13: Approved 5-0-1 (Dentin) 2. Effluent Recharge Site Diane McElligott indicated Norton has a place holder article for their Spring Town Meeting to purchase the Reilly property. The Water & Sewer Commissioners and the Board of Selectmen are holding a Public Hearing on this issue March 14`h. Diane reiterated Norton hopes not to use the article if the District Agreement is signed. Otherwise they will try to purchase the land and use its ownership as a reason to keep discussing the District Agreement. Bottom line is either Norton or Mansfield needs to purchase the Reilly property. 3. Community Updates • Norton IN Nothing new has occurred with Wheaton discussions. Diane McElligott indicated that what Norton charges Wheaton for wastewater capacity is a separate issue from what Norton is charged by the District. Developer that owns wastewater capacity in Norton is offering some of it back to the town. Norton expects to have a revised wastewater flow request by end of this week based on these discussions. They expect their flow request may drop down to 250,000 gpd with or without Wheaton. Fran Yanuskiewicz believes a dialogue should occur about what would happen if the communities don't approve the District Agreement. He and others believe all the hard work put into developing the Draft should be wrapped into an IMA among the towns so that the basic tenets of the agreement are implemented. That was the general consensus of those in attendance. • Foxborough Bill Euerle indicated Foxborough is looking to present an article at Town Meeting that will establish a sewer district in town. No funding articles are planned at this time. However, they have a tremendous selling job ahead of them to get towns people to buy into program. BOS still is not behind the current plan. • Bill Euerle indicated the Water & Sewer Commissioners currently have authority to sign the District Agreement and that except for a few legal comments they are okay with the agreement as it stands. • Mansfield • Bill Ross noted that the day the District Agreement is signed it will not be perfect and related it to the U.S. Constitution and its' Amendments. Thus, he implored all parties to get the agreement done. 4. Updated Costs and Schedule • David Young had emailed updated cost spreadsheets dated 2-26-13 to all parties for them to evaluate their costs. He reviewed the minor changes made since the previous discussion. • Diane McElligott indicated the Norton W&S Commissioners believe Wheaton should be allowed into the existing treatment plant at the existing IMA formula and that they would pay for the nutrient removal and facility upgrade going forward but not for flow expansion. She believes that is within design parameters and thus no additional costs are needed. • David Young reiterated that Wheaton's 120,000 gpd of flow could be connected in the interim to the existing treatment plant since flows won't occur instantaneously but that Wheaton's flow needed to be accounted for in the flow expansion and thus someone needs to pay for it. • Bill Ross stated his concern that it appears more costs continue to be CV transferred over to Mansfield and Foxborough and away from Norton and bD wondered where the fairness was in that strategy. w Norton representatives indicated they still needed more time to review the cost spreadsheets but that they are still concerned over the projected O&M costs. They do not believe that Mansfield O&M costs should decrease if they are gaining more wastewater capacity. It was pointed out that the costs are mainly based on percent ownership of the treatment plant. 5. Discussion on Draft of Regional District Agreement (9-17-12) A. Comments on Working Draft • Diane McElligott provided word edits to the Draft Agreement that would add Wheaton flow in the interim as she described above and they would not be charged for the expansion. Mansfield and Foxborough representatives continued to express concern over this concept. 6. Schedule to Finalize Agreement for Signatures • No action 7. Other • Representative Barrows summarized the Tri -Town Chamber of Commerce meeting on morning of March 4`h. He indicated that Greg Bialecki, Secretary of Housing and Economic Development for the Commonwealth attended and will review potential funding options to assist the wastewater district. 8. Next Meeting • Next meeting Monday, March 18th at 6:00 pm. Adjourn 7:20 pm Minutes Approved 4-8-I3 m M a