City of Portsmouth, New Hampshire 2022 - 2024 City Council, 18 May 2022

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From YouTube: 5.18.2022 City Council Work Session

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5.18.2022 City Council Work Session

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All right, uh thank you. Everyone for coming to the water.

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Sewer and storm water department city council budget work session of today.

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uh May the 18th 2022 um I'm going to pass it over to uh assistant city manager, suzanne woodland.

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Also assistant city attorney, but in this capacity as assistant city manager, our deputy city manager,.

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To walk through this presentation, I think karen is joining us halfway through this presentation. Yes,.

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The city manager canard had another obligation this evening, but she will be here when that.

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Obligation is finished so tonight we're doing the water sewer and storm water presentation walking.

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Through the elements of the budget we have here, the director of public works, peter rice, who's.

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Lurking in the background.

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We also have here the finance director, judy, belanger um and we'll be hearing this evening.

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From brian goetz, the deputy public works director, terry demaris city, engineer, uh jamie mccarty, gis.

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Coordinator and david hyder, our rate consultant, so with that brian, do you.

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Want to start us off, certainly thank you, everyone and glad to be here tonight and.

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We do have a number of slides, but we we've we've practiced and we're going to try to do our best to.

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Go through them quickly and not read all the information, and um you know you have it for.

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For backup and and further info, um you know, questions come at the end. uh So uh again as.

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Suzanne said um the four of us will be talking respectively, about water sewer, storm water and.

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Then david hyder will get into a bit more of the budget and the rates and his recommendations.

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We're going to talk a little bit about the the system uh year in review.

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Some highlights challenges and then the rate increase adjustments and the proposed budgets.

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And then we'll open it up discussion, so if, if that is okay with with everyone there, instead of.

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Halting during the presentation to get through everything, because some questions may be answered.

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You know with information later on, so uh the budget challenges overall for all three of.

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The divisions are uh number one regulatory compliance, um a lot of just about you know.

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Everything we touch has some regulation to it: water, waste water, especially storm water. Now too,.

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And on the water side, of course, pfas and other pending water quality regulations.

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Are before us, we also with us al pratt, our water resources, managers on zoom and also glenn wilson,.

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Our wastewater operations manager is with us as well, so on the sewer side, terry's going to discuss.

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A little bit more about the new wastewater treatment permit, so we have both for peas,.

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And pierce island and then we are pending system upgrades at the pease wastewater.

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Treatment facility and then, of course, with stormwater jamie mccarty, we'll talk to you about.

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How we're pursuing our efforts to meet the ms4 stormwater permit compliance.

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uh A big, very big challenge, too, compounding things are increasing costs so.

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No surprise to anyone that our chemicals, both how we get everything delivered, because.

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Everything comes by semi truck, their costs have gone up considerably, so we're seeing surcharges.

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And we did bid our chemicals that we do annually for all our treatments. We order them in faulk.

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And unfortunately, we're seeing some very high increases there. So hopefully that's going to be.

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Just a blip and we'll see them come down long-term financing, as you've heard um interest rates are.

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Going up so we're getting hit hit with those two on our projections. David hyder will speak that.

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A little bit more, our capital projects we're seeing bids come in high and we also they're.

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Coming in high for two reasons, costs are going up, labor is difficult to get for our contractors.

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But we are not getting that many bidders. In fact, on the sagamore project, we had two.

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Bidders for a project which you know five 10 years ago, we would have got maybe 10 bidders on.

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And then materials and supplies are having a long lead time we're seeing upwards of six to eight.

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Months for ordering pipe so we're pre-thinking a lot of projects in that staffing. I know other.

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Departments have talked about staffing, we have summarized where we stand right now: just water.

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Wastewater storm water. We have eight current job openings. We did have 10 hires last year, which were.

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Replacement employees because we did have nine uh people resign and go on to other positions.

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And we also had five retirements, so it's a very competitive job market, the the qualifications for.

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The work that we do, especially for water treatment and some of the skilled positions.

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Is very difficult, and you know it often takes months to even get you know. A qualified applicant.

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And next slide please uh and aging infrastructure, so I I I know uh peter rice had this little.

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Curve slide, which, which uh you know really speaks to to what we too, especially on water wastewater.

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Stormwater deal with aging infrastructure, and so we we crunched a few numbers.

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We do still refer to it as the new madberry water treatment facility, but it's 11 years old.

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And then, if you really look at that age is one thing, but once you turn a facility like this on.

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It never turns off, so it's not like driving a car that you drive to work and then it sits and then.

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You drive home, we turn these things on. They are continuous so that you, you can see the continuous.

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Operation hours of that facility, the pierce island, which is our brand new wastewater treatment.

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Facility there are portions of that facility that are six years old now and then the peas wastewater.

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Treatment facility was built in the 50s, so there's some aging equipment there, that is uh 65 plus.

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Years old and of course, we do have pipes in our system that are upwards of a hundred years old.

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uh So so, lastly, before we drill into specifics, we do have a the the think blue outreach, so water.

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Wastewater storm, water, um we're thinking blue, and I know we. We introduced that um to all you.

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Counselors and and we're pitching more to our public, especially on the storm water side. But.

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It does speak to water, wastewater and storm water and we're really happy to partner with strawberry.

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Bank on their exhibit and think blue outreach is part of that and lastly, um you know, of course, our.

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Next slide, please our our videos that are getting some legs and and go with us tonight. um You know.

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I think we may have launched a couple good, acting careers for our soon-to-be retiring city attorney.

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And, of course, andrew pergle, not to be outdone by bob, has himself really done a good mark on our.

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Our website and our outreach for why people really need to rake leaves and do their best to.

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Protect the storm, water and water quality with respect to that so.

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Job all done, andrew, so water division. um Again uh we do operate both the portsmouth regional.

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Water system serve the communities not only portsmouth but around us and then internally.

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The peas tradeport water system- and these are the particulars of both of those systems.

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Next slide so highlights this year that little picture on the right is the new peas.

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Water treatment facility, we are in compliance with all the drinking water regulatory requirements and.

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We continue to respond and treat the peas, trade port contamination and, as that system was put.

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Online and commissioned in april of last year, and then the haven well, which has been on since.

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August of 21 and things are still running very well performance. Wise next slide.

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uh One thing that is good offsetting: some of the costs that we're seeing increasingly.

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We do have agreements with the air force close to eight hundred thousand dollars in this year's.

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Budget that we're going to get as reimbursable from them, because these are additional operating.

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Costs for running that facility and then we recently were awarded through the infrastructure.

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Monies a little bay water line replacement and we also have 50 thousand dollars coming to us.

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For the pressure study- and we are pending to get some monies to help us both on water.

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And wastewater, with cyber security next slide, uh fortunately, we did get through the drought.

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When I spoke here last year, we were really looking at some very dry conditions. They fortunately were.

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Abated a bit by july's rains and then in october, currently right now we are looking fairly good, but.

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It's always day to day and may, though, we've had a couple little storms, it's kind of fairly dry, but.

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We're pretty good system pumpage. Now we averaged our lowest in 40 years now. This is just the water.

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We pumped into the system. um Water sales remained steady, so it wasn't the lowest in 40 years. As far.

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As what went through customer meters and I've got a slide um coming up here, that will kind.

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Of describe that next slide, please um so here's that sales trend, so these are the the last six.

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Years and projected for this year and as you can see, they're fairly steady down just a little bit.

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But no particular um trend that is, is showing a decrease in sales and then also there was a big.

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Question I know david hyder. Our rate consultant has been working with some client communities.

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Of his that saw a big drop during covet of water use. We didn't see that trend ourselves next slide.

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um So here here's that differential, so uh the blue is what we pumped in the system. The green.

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Is basically sales and other metered um and accounted for use, so you can see how those.

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Those two two bars are coming together and next slide will show you.

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Why this is the case? We've we've done leak detection, we've done some major meter upgrades big.

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Kudos to our meter, crew and a lot of system pipe improvements, so.

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The capital monies and the increasing costs to our system don't go without some.

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Benefits here and a great benefit is that you know we we are able to pick up and fix fixed pipes that.

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Could be, uh you know, causing us to pump more water than we need to next slide?.

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And here just some: this is our meter crew on the left and our.

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Our regular work crew on the right just doing uh the day-to-day work they do and here's some of the.

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The numbers you can see that are uh really pretty uh pretty uh impressive when you, when you think.

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Of um you know what one work order can add up to when you just do it over and over again, so we've.

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We've really been out there and stepped up with respect to.

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Really tracking- and you know, monitoring the system next slide and uh also too we're we're.

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Very happy about how things are trending with our water efficiency program. This is a a graph which.

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Is uh showing continued a downward trend and use per customer? So we do have more customers.

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On our system, but per customer we're seeing less use, especially the residential next slide,.

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And we always like to pitch that you know part of this is our rebate program, so we have issued over.

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A thousand of these rebates to date, so any customers has got an old toilet that can be.

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Replaced with a new uh low flow, efficient toilet, you get a hundred dollar rebate and 150 for a high.

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Efficiency, washing machine and again, these are are our benefit to the system, because you know.

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A gallon saved is less expensive for us than to find an additional gallon and treat it and put.

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It in the system next slide, please, and, and lastly, we are- we are not. Lastly, second to last here.

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We are continuing our efforts of source water protection, um we're happy to say that uh you.

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Know we've got these two acquired properties very close to the intake of the reservoir and al pratt.

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Is working with the southeast land trust right as we speak on an additional property which should.

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Help buffer this and we hope to bring something forward to council very very soon. In that respect,.

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Next slide, uh so, lastly, um on the community side, we have our safe water advisory group. We have.

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Councilor blaylock and councillors lombardi they're, both members of that and thank you.

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For your participation, we just recently had our water forum, so if people haven't heard.

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Enough about water tonight just go on our website and go to youtube and you can watch.

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uh Two hours worth of more more info about the water system through our water form.

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And we also participate in the drinking water commission, the seacoast drinking water commission.

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The peas restoration advisory board, which just had a meeting last night, meets quarterly.

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And uh we are, um I sit on the drop management task force which meets as needed, and hopefully we won't.

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Have to meet this year, so I think uh thank you for uh your time on that and then we'll turn it over.

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To terry, to talk about the sewer good evening, mr mayor members of city council, um I'll walk.

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Through the sewer division this evening, so in terms of our our overall assets, we have.

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We really group this into two major categories: one is the sewer pipes and the plumbing stations.

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um So you can see we have a significant amount of assets under that about 120 miles of sewer main.

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20 wastewater pump stations and we also manage the digsafe program under under that group.

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On the tree wastewater treatment facility side, we obviously we have the the two-way.

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Storage room facilities, the one at pierce island and the one at peace. So overall the.

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Sewer division serves uh the city of portsmouth, the pease international trade.

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Port town of newcastle uh portions of rye and then two customers in greenland, slides please.

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Just a few highlights for the for the sewer division first here is: uh you know that we.

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Are in compliance with treatment and collection system, regulatory requirements- and there are many.

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Of those we've shown a few of them at the right, these are generally related to uh permits.

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National pollutant discharge, elimination system permits mpdes, so these are wastewater permits.

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Required are given to put on the city by the environmental protection agency.

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We have two three permits that deal with the treatment side of the house, so there's two.

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Individual permits we'll be talking about these further individual permits are one for the pearce.

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Island facility, one for the peas facility and they regulate the conventional pollutants.

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On top of, that is a layer of uh one more permit called the grape, a total nitrogen general permit.

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Which sets out the effluent limits for just nitrogen for both of our treatment facilities.

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So there's three permits for the two plants. uh Further to that there's some we do have a consent.

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Decree the primary compliance requirement under that consent decree was for construction of the.

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Upgrade at pierce island and there's a number of other projects under under there, including.

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The sagamore low pressure sewer system and some of the uh sewer separation projects.

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uh We are also uh this year, both of the treatment facilities will be getting new.

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Individual niptis permits so we'll talk a little bit more about that later in the presentation.

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The pearson treatment facility is continuing to discharge great.

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And improved effluent water quality- we are continuing on with a number of those sewer.

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Separation projects, and in this next year, we'll be focusing a lot on the planning and.

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uh Details associated with an upgrade at the pea stream facility next slide, please, as far as.

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From from a grants perspective, one of the big things that happened this year was made our.

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First, payment on the pearce island facility, so you might recall that we elected to use state.

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State revolving loan fund for that, and because that was such a long project that resulted in a.

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Significant savings for the city on the rate for construction financing. um It also resulted in.

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Or will ultimately result in over four million dollars in principal forgiveness on that loan.

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We've continued to to look at other projects in the city and try to capture as many of the grants.

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Available under the arpa program as possible- and you can see in this list here- we have- we.

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Have secured just over 2 million dollars to date to the opera program for sewer related projects.

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Next selections, as far as the core functions and services for the sewer division, first and.

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Foremost is similar to what brian said earlier. Is compliance with those permits.

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We have 24-hour operation, so we have to be monitoring these facilities with on-call.

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Staff, when they're not monitored by by person, preventive and corrective maintenance, and you.

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We've seen the seen the graph, so this is a key and important part of the program that the sewer.

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Division works on that includes anywhere from the equipment, as well as the facilities themselves.

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We monitor and manage a number of different programs. Those include the industrial.

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Pre-Treatment program, so is there any major industries that discharge will be permitted.

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Through the city, this is going to become more formal with the new and updated permits. There's.

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A fat, soil and grease program, which is all about protecting the sewer and the assets that we have.

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And preventing that material from getting into the collection system and causing problems.

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And then the long-term control plan fits in this program category as well. Next slide, please.

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um As we review some of the um some of these permits, because it is so heavily regulated, we.

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That does have a resulting impact on our budgets as an example. The great bay total nitrogen general.

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Permit well, it sets out our effluent limits for uh nitrogen. It also has a component in there where we.

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Do where we commit to a significant amount of water quality, monitoring and you'll, see a line.

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Item in the budget for that effort, the individual niptice permits, as we'll talk about in a few.

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Moments have some additional requirements. They did not exist at the time of our budget development.

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So we'll be working through that this year, as we move forward.

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Long-Term control plan projects- these are heavy construction projects and those are.

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Costly, mostly on the capital side. Lastly, uh we we continue to track kind of the regulatory landscape.

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We have generally a good sense on what's going on, but there's uh there's there's been.

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New, a lot more emphasis put on concerns related to sludge disposal.

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We don't right now we go to a landfill, but there are many other facilities that use things like.

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Land application and because of pfas, that's becoming a uh not as really not a ready.

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Option for many people as a result, everyone wants to go to the landfill where we are.

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Already bringing our our solids so there's some pressure there and something that we're keeping.

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Keeping tabs on next slide, please, as it relates to the updated nipty's permits.

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You know and just to point out again these are the individual permits. So there's two quote unquote.

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Conventional pollutants and we'll you'll see some slides on them later about pierce island, but.

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uh Refer to them as biochemical oxygen demand. This is the organic strength of the wastewater.

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Effluent and then total suspended solids, which are the solids and suspended in the water column.

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um The these permits set out the limits for that it's separate from the grape total.

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Nitrogen general permit so that one sets out the limits for nitrogen separately under these draft.

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Permits which we we received, uh both of them came out in draft form over the last couple of months.

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As a matter of process, they come out in draft. They sit for a month to six weeks for the opportunity.

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For anybody in the public to comment on them um and then then they they address the comments and.

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Issue a final draft and we suspect you know that lasts. You know in between one to three months,.

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So we just issued comments on the ps permit on the draft piece permit or working on comments for the.

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Pierce island draft permit, but, as we look at this as a whole, the things that were most market market.

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Are most new really were the increase in kind of volume and frequency of testing requirements.

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So a lot of the testing requirements that we had previously we're gonna have to test more.

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Frequently almost double um and then there were added additional parameters that we had to test.

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For there's, a lot of uh you know with with the new programs that are in here there's a number of.

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Added time-based deliverables, so there's there seems like there's, there's a lot of deliberates.

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Through the course of the five-year permit period, and, lastly, uh there's some additional.

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Programs in there there's a collection system, operation, maintenance program and then there's.

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The industrial pre-treatment program, so this is, uh we have a informal program now. This will require.

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That we do a formal federal program that gets put into our ordinances results in a significant.

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Change in terms of the number of site inspections, we have to do the amount of documentation and we.

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Have to do sampling of all the sites that we permit, it will result in and you'll see in the.

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Staffing that we have need for additional staff members to support this program and requirement.

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Next slide, please just going to briefly go through a number of our major projects, so pierce island.

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Has been operational for a little over a full year now.

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We've won a number of uh engineering and construction related awards for.

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This particular project- and it's performing very well as you'll, see on the next slide.

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Just go back one, if you don't mind. Thank you this first one is, you know these are just.

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Graphs, showing you really trying to demonstrate the improvement in the water quality prior to.

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And after construction, so it doesn't go right up to the uh today's date, but you'll see that.

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It covers the time period in 2019 the end of 2019. Through 2021, we put the we started, the.

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Facility up in december of uh sorry january of 2020, and you can see the significant drop.

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In these lines, and that's because we're removing a lot more contaminants from the from the wastewater.

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So this one is biochemical oxygen or biological oxygen demand and, on average, we're removing about.

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2 000 pounds a day more than we did previously and we're discharging from a concentration basis.

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Down at about 10 milligrams per liter, our limit is 30.. Similarly, on the next slide, we.

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Have total suspended solids this? You know we're reducing about 1600 pounds per day on average.

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Compared to prior to the upgrade and we're discharging around 8 milligrams per liter,.

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On average and that limits 30 as well and lastly on the next slide, is nitrogen.

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And uh for nitrogen and effluent um we're discharging uh on the range of 85 percent less so.

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So 600 pounds per day less than we did prior to the upgrade and are able to uh achieve. You know.

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We're down in the range of five milligrams per liter on average and our limit. It's it's a little.

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Gray, our limit is actually in in pounds, but it's generally also eight milligrams per liter or less.

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And you'll see in the top right of this, this photo just the clarity of the effluent as it.

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Goes through the process so starting on the far left is the waste water coming in.

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After goes to the first round of treatment, it's it's! What's in the center.

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Called primary effluent and then on the far right is the the treated final treated effluent.

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And uh as as I mentioned earlier, our next, um you know over the course of this.

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This year, we'll be talking a lot about the peas wastewater treatment facility.

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This facility was originally built in the 50s upgraded in the late 90s, which is when the city.

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Took over ownership, they got another upgrade in early 2000. The last upgrade was in 2021, where we.

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Built uh the rebuilt, the headworks, I made a new headworks, that's the first stage of treatment.

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And in the 2019 time frame we got a request for an increase in capacity to uh from from lonza, so we.

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Made that request to the epa, and that was included through the um updated permit, that I was referring.

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To so, the upgrades needed for this facility are really twofold: one we're looking at a capacity.

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Increase um and then secondly, you know, as brian was mentioning a lot of this facility still is.

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Still has very much aged equipment, reliability. You know, as as that equipment ages becomes a.

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Bigger problem so we're looking at having to replace some of the aged equipment within the.

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Limits of this facility and that's something that has complex projects, something that we anticipate.

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Will be a discussion in the future with the city council at a work session, where we have more time.

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As far as completed pump state completed in future pump station enforcement projects, the the.

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One that's uh first shown here on the right-hand side. Is the mechanic street force mains they're.

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On pierce island, so we had a force main failure that resulted in the need to replace those from.

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The pearson road bridge up to the treatment plant and over here on the right you see the.

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Work that was just recently completed and paved and upcoming will be uh some improvements to.

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The mechanic street pump station this project wasn't is intended to extend the lifespan of.

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That station, until we uh to kind of delay the need to do a full, comprehensive upgrade and.

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Replacement of that station- and we have a number of other smaller pump stations planned as well.

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And lastly, uh on the side of sewer pipeline and separation projects, there was a number of projects.

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Completed including islington street phase, one and phase sorry one and one b, um maplewood ave.

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And the side streets, the mcdonough street area and pleasant street uh upcoming this coming year.

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Our years upcoming will be islington street phase. Two, it's from dover street out to maplewood ave.

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The fleet street area union street from middle of the state, willard avenue and then the sagamore.

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Avenue area low pressure, sewer, which is going to be starting soon and you'll, see over on the right.

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Hand side is just a quick figure of the benefits of doing the sewer separation type projects, as we.

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Reduce combined sewer overflows, you can see just over time that that has significantly improved.

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Okay, so jamie mccarty, if you want to put your video on and unmute.

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Thank you, suzanne. um Thank you, mr mayor and members of the council. I'm jamie mccarty, I'm the.

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Gis manager for the city apologize for not being able to be in the room with you, as I would have.

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Hoped but I was a close contact uh this week, so better safe doing it from my office. So next slide.

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um So I'm going to be talking about the stormwater system, um it is a series of inlets pipes.

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Swales other outlets that convey storm water. We have many miles of piping catch basins, manholes.

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And we have like the other two systems, uh a ms4 permit, which is issued by epa.

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Ms4 stands for municipal, separate storm sewer system um and, as a result of that, permit.

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We are required to observe, maintain uh sample.

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Several bmp systems and 202 outfalls, which are the discharge points for the system next slide.

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um So what have we been doing? um This is kind of our day-to-day work that our crews work on.

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Working catch basins inspecting and cleaning drain lines. Street sweeping is a key item for storm.

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Water maintenance, the leaf collection, as brian mentioned earlier, is, is another important item.

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And I'll take a moment here to mention that you know in this next year we're going to be.

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Doing more enhanced street sweeping looking to post parking restrictions on certain.

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Streets, so we can really do an efficient job in cleaning streets, so next slide.

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Because the city only controls about a quarter of the land in the city, we really work to do.

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A lot of public outreach uh to the public to um encourage people to do the right thing in.

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How they deal with stormwater so uh twice a year, we host a household hazardous waste day.

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The next one is actually this saturday, so if you have any hazardous waste, bring it by public works.

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Every year we we put out a scoop, the poop flyer, with our dog licenses this last year. We also.

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Focused mailers to residents on how to handle, leaves and yard waste lawn watering efficiency.

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And then we're also targeting businesses and developers encouraging them to use low impact.

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Development techniques, um as suggested by our site regulations, and to hire green snow pro.

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Contractors for their winter operations.

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Next slide yeah. Another big initiative for this last year that we implemented was our stormwater.

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Treatment tracking application it was developed by des and unh, we hosted a training session.

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uh Here at the city, uh and that's because we made it a requirement of our site plan review.

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Regulations, um and not only are we requiring new site plans to submit this report on how much.

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Stormwater is being treated on their sites, but we've also.

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Done a full inventory of our city infrastructure, uh treatment devices and uh and.

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Produce these reports for ourselves, um like I said it's a program, that's in uh hosted by unh and.

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It's also uh helping us with compliance uh with our great bay total nitrogen permit next slide.

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In the next year, we're going to continue to work hard on all the.

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In-House you know, cleaning catch basins, inspecting pipes um and a lot of focus is going to be on the.

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Work, that's required by the ms4 stormwater permit currently we're in year, four fiscal.

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Year, 23 will be entering year. Five, it's going to be a lot of continuing to conduct these wet.

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Weather outfall screenings and sampling, so we are required to do a wet weather inspection so.

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For us that means generally, you know we need rainfall of more than a third of an inch. We go out.

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In the weather uh to all by the end of the permit, we have to have visited all 202 of these outfalls.

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And collected samples analyzed them for certain stormwater related parameters.

F

Last year we conducted over 50. we're not quite done yet so that number will change, but.

F

50 sample sampling locations next year, we plan on doing the same uh and one of the great benefits.

F

Of the pure silent treatment facility is that we're now able to move that analysis from from.

F

Contracting it out to uh to a local uh laboratory to be able to do it in-house um at the new pure.

F

Silent treatment facilities lab um another big labor effort. Is we, after we've taken these.

F

Samples at all the outfalls, we also need to look at the catchment upstream of these outfalls and.

F

And look for illicit discharges to them and we'll also be implementing our salt.

F

Reduction plan which you can read about on our stormwater page on the city's website next page.

F

So we we strive to be a leader in the area.

F

We contribute and we've been a long-standing member of the seacoast stormwater coalition.

F

There are representatives from des, as well as a couple dozen other new hampshire.

F

Municipalities, occasionally, we work with some of the other.

F

New hampshire storm water coalitions throughout the state.

F

And our myself and our staff have participated in several subcommittees which helped to.

F

Make the the work that we do more efficient by uh by working together with these communities to.

F

uh To share our efforts next slide, so that's the end of my presentation, uh brian I'll, take over.

F

And speak a little bit about our feasibility study for our stormwater utility. Thank you jamie. It's so.

C

So, lastly, on on the stormwater site, I know we've briefly mentioned in some other meetings when.

C

We've touched on stormwater that this year we're going to endeavor to do a feasibility.

C

Study on developing and putting together a stormwater utility, our technical team.

C

Is vhb who has been working with jamie and our staff and ourselves on the technical side of.

C

uh Compliance and needs there and stantec david hyder who's with us tonight is going to be working.

C

With us on developing a rate structure and how the fees would be be put together, and we do anticipate.

C

Bringing all this forward to council later this year in some work sessions and on the right I.

C

Won't go into full detail, but there are some some great benefits of putting a utility together.

C

um The biggest are that uh you, you get sustainable revenue from actual uh users per se of the the.

C

Utility, but also improve watershed stewardship because we can develop incentive programs.

C

That you know, through the fees people can get credits if they start doing some.

C

Best management practices on their properties and again, as mentioned before many times, the.

C

Part of the great bay total nitrogen permit is that we do explore this uh as an option.

C

So one last slide on stormwater, so utilities overall, just this is a good snapshot of.

C

The country and the dots keep filling in there, we're maybe close to two thousand of these in the.

C

In the country, but uh stormwater utilities are not really uh that uncommon they're just.

C

Uncommon in new england and new hampshire, especially there are currently no um stormwater.

C

Utilities in new hampshire- we do know dover uh concord are both exploring that option. So.

C

We can we can see how they progress and and in new england, just recently there.

C

Are the states around us massachusetts and vermont that are um you know doing that so.

C

Thank you and we're going to turn it now over to david um to finish up here by getting into the.

C

The numbers and our rate projections and budgets there all right. Thank you, brian.

E

uh Yes, so good evening, mayor council members, it's my job now to talk about how we fund all of these.

E

Good things that you're doing with water, sewer and stormwater, and so I'm going to talk about.

E

The operating budgets and then we'll talk about the rate model approach and some recommendations.

E

So on the next slide, just to kind of remind remind everybody that you account for the.

E

Water and sewer systems as enterprise funds, and so essentially, what that means is that.

E

They're self-supporting funds, so they operate in a similar manner to a private business.

E

But the key takeaway is that you must have fees and charges that are sufficient to.

E

Cover the cost of operating the systems, so the day-to-day operations and maintenance, as well.

E

As the capital investments so reinvestment in the system, as well as paying off debt service.

E

There are no other revenues that you generate to fund the system. So again they need to.

E

Be self-supporting, you don't use property tax revenues to subsidize the water and sewer funds.

E

And so this discussion this evening is very important to make sure that you have the appropriate water and sewer rates going forward next slide.

E

So, in terms of the budgets for water and sewer, this is the cash funding components for the water.

E

And sewer fund so for the water fund you can see the budget is 12.2 million and for.

E

Sewer it's 23.4 million, and what that essentially is is the total cost of operating.

E

Maintaining and paying off capital in terms of historical debt service, as well as any.

E

Capital investments that are cash funded throughout the year, so you can see the.

E

Breakdown of what what's made up there, that's the personnel expenses. So that's the staffing.

E

You have your operations and maintenance, which is the day-to-day operations of the system.

E

And then again, capital and debt service, the one note you'll or one item you can note here.

E

Is that the vast majority of the expenses are capital? And that's just indicative of the fact.

E

That utilities are very capital nature, so the ongoing reinvestments in the system, as well as.

E

Rebuilding plants and the like next slide, so the city has been operating under a rate policy for.

E

About a decade now that dates back to the initial rate study, which was commenced in.

E

November of 2012., that study was kicked off then during 2013 and 14, or a number of council.

E

Work sessions that were held as well as some public meetings to ultimately get input in.

E

Terms of how you would structure your rates going forward and what type of policy you'd have for.

E

Addressing the fact that you had to make some significant investments in the future.

E

In capital projects, and so essentially that rate model has been utilized over the past.

E

Seven or eight years to guide the policy recommendations for how you set your rates.

E

And essentially, what that's been is that you've taken a steady, what we term glide.

E

Path approach to adjusting water and sewer rates, so if we look on the next slide, this.

E

Is really the policy that's been used? It's used to essentially have a stabilized financial plan.

E

And versus a break even where you're raising rates based upon specific needs at a specific point in.

E

Time so again, just to emphasize what this does is. It provides a stable and predictable rates.

E

Along that stabilized financial plan and just to give you a little bit of context, the next slide.

E

Shows some new hampshire seacoast communities and the rate trends that we've seen over the.

E

Last couple years, so just to dive into what this actually shows, it shows the actual cumulative.

E

Increase in these seacoast communities, in terms of their rate, adjustments going back to 2017.

E

So if you look at the slide down at the bottom portsmouth in green, you can see that stabilized.

E

And steady path of sewer rate adjustments that's taken place, and then you can just contrast that.

E

With some of the other communities and how they've adjusted rates so again, the policy has been to.

E

Try to keep them as stable and predictable as possible as compared to increasing rates kind of.

E

In a crisis mode, where you're having to address some significant capital investments next slide.

E

And so that brings us to today and what we're seeing in terms of some.

E

Some current challenges and drivers brian mentioned these earlier in the presentation, but.

E

What we're seeing is given the current economic conditions, they are having some pretty significant.

E

Impacts on your current and future utility expenses, brian touched on the chemical costs.

E

Have increased significantly, another big impact is a substantial increase in borrowing costs.

E

And that really has a a really significant increase when we look at your future debt service.

E

Because we know that in a rising interest rate environment the debt service is going.

E

To be more expensive so that the cost of essentially financing capital projects.

E

Is going up in the future? Brian also touched on some increasing staff requirements.

E

And then, finally, there were some refinements and additional capital improvement projects that have.

E

Been identified in the future years, and so when we bring all these factors together, what we're.

E

Seeing is when we look at our forecast. Now we are seeing that our cash requirements are escalating.

E

Our cash requirements are escalating above some of our prior forecasts and that's really.

E

Shown here on the next slide, so just to set the context here. The light bars here are your water.

E

Cache requirements so the total cost of providing water service, and you can see that back to.

E

2017. and in 2022 we made a forecast and you can see that forecast going forward. 23.

E

24 through 27 and those light blue bars were that forecast of the water cache requirements.

E

uh With the current budget and with the inflation, as well as the increase in borrowing cost.

E

We're now forecasting higher cash requirements, so you can see the 2023 budget is a dark blue.

E

And then, as we go forward, we anticipate that's going to continue to be at a higher rate or a.

E

Higher level of cash requirements in the future years, so that's an important distinction this year.

E

And if we look at how we're addressing that on the next slide, this slide again.

E

Shows the cash requirements year over year, the stacked bars show the various components.

E

Of those cash requirements so light blue is the personal cost. The red is your other operating.

E

Green is capital outlay, so pay go annual capital spending and then the purple is your debt service.

E

And again you can see that jump up in 2023 it's about an 18 increase over fiscal year. 22.

E

And so what's being recommended this year is a three percent increase in water rates.

E

To get your revenues up closer to your total cash requirements, you could see that.

E

The orange line there doesn't necessarily meet the top of the bar, so you are going to be using.

E

Some cash from fund balance in 2023, but then going forward. We do believe you probably need.

E

To continue to increase water rates at about three percent per year to keep up with the expenditures.

E

So next slide shows the total revenue breakdown for fiscal year. 23.

E

So you can see the vast majority of your revenues come from usage rates, so this.

E

Represents that three percent increase in water rates will bring in about 8.4 million dollars.

E

You have other fees and charges which bring in about 2.4 million. You have some special.

E

Agreements that I'll talk about more in a minute brings in about 800 000. As I mentioned, we will be.

E

Using some net position or some balance within the the water fund and fiscal year, 23 of about 500 000.

E

So that brings you to your total of 12.2 million revenues to meet the system, expenditures.

E

Next slide, and so what this looks like for fiscal year, 23 in terms of the actual water rates.

E

These rates are three percent higher give than the fiscal year 22 rates.

E

And just a reminder in terms of how you charge for water service, the first 10 units that you use.

E

Per month are charged at one rate and then, if you go over that and use more than 10 units per month,.

E

Started at a higher rate, so the fiscal year 23 rates for the first 10 units would be 454 per unit.

E

And just a reminder that a unit is 748 gallons of water and then the second tier rate is 546.

E

And again, these are three percent higher than your current fiscal year. 22 rates next slide.

E

You also have rates for those with irrigation meters and so similar structure, except there's.

E

Three tiers so the first 0 to 10 t first, zero to ten units is charged at five. Forty six under the.

E

Three percent increase and then the second tier going from eleven to twenty units would be ten.

E

Thirty and then, if you use over twenty units per month for your irrigation meter, you'd pay 12.71.

E

And again, these are all three percent higher than your current fiscal year. 22 rates.

E

So, finally, where the the rubber meets the road in terms of a typical customer's bill, so this is the.

E

Average residential customer bill and your typical customer uses about five units per month of water.

E

And so you can see the total monthly bill here under the three percent increase would be 27.65.

E

And then, if we annualize that that turns into 331 dollars per year, so on average a typical customer.

E

Pays about 91 cents per day to have water service and then just a couple more statistics here. The.

E

Fiscal year 23 increase, it increases the average customer's water bill per month by about 70 cents.

E

And that's about a two cent per day increase.

E

Just to give you some sense for how much of a change that is.

E

So next slide we'll shift gears and one more I'm sorry. So we do have the air force agreements.

E

Brian mentioned these earlier, some good news here in terms of the agreements total over 17.

E

Million dollars, reimbursable expenses that are plus its contributions towards operating costs,.

E

If you didn't have these agreements in place, we estimate that it would require about a 17.

E

Increase in water rates, so it's it's very substantial, really helps out the water fund and.

E

In fiscal year, 23 you're getting reimbursable for operating costs of about 780 thousand dollars from.

E

The air force, so those are all factored in and they're all all very positive for the water fund.

E

And now we can shift to sewer so similar picture here on the sewer side.

E

Looking back at the cash requirements to fiscal year, 17, where we were forecasting.

E

Last year, when we looked at it fiscal year, 22 going forward, we were looking at relatively.

E

Stable cash requirements from 22 forward, but you can see that, given the budget for 23.

E

Those additional borrowing costs, as well as some additional capital projects.

E

The forecast is substantially higher than what we were forecasting last year.

E

It is important to note in fiscal year 22 that is when you began paying.

E

The debt service on the pearce island plant: that's why the cash requirements increased so much in 22.

E

So the solution is shown on the next slide in terms of the forecast. Again, you can see the.

E

Components of the cash requirements the purple bar there in 22, increases substantially because of the.

E

Pierce island debt service in fiscal year 23, you can see it is higher than 22, and so what we are.

E

Recommending is the six percent increase in fiscal year 23 for for sewer rates and that at this point.

E

Right now, given the increasing cost, I think you're probably going to need to continue to do.

E

Rate increases around that level in steps of my years at about six percent per year,.

E

So the next slide shows the revenues so fiscal year, 23 sewer revenue breakdown again the vast.

E

Majority of your revenues come from the usage charges so about 18 million makes up about 78 of.

E

Your total revenues. Now we are using a substantial portion of that position in fiscal year, 23.

E

But this was anticipated and again it goes it's consistent with that glide path.

E

Approach we talked about earlier, where we're not immediately raising rates to.

E

Cover our expenditures, but we're using some net position that have been built up over the years.

E

To allow you to have those gradual increases in rates, I also have some state aid grants.

E

Miscellaneous revenues, interest investments, interest on investments as well as some special.

E

Agreements so that brings us to our total of 23.4 23.4 million in total revenues on the sewer system.

E

So what this looks like in terms of rates with the six percent rate change.

E

These rates are six percent higher than fiscal year 22, so you have a similar structure on the.

E

Sewer side, the first 10 units are charged one rate and then over 10 units is charged. Another.

E

So the sewer rates would be 1578 in fiscal year, 23 and 17 36 for those units above 10 units per month.

E

And what this looks like in terms of a typical customer bill is shown on the next slide.

E

So again, typical customer uses five units, so their total monthly charge is 78.90.

E

Under the fiscal year, 23 rates that turns into an annual bill of about 946 dollars.

E

And so the typical customer pays about 2.59 per day for sewer service, and this does result.

E

In terms of the increase over last year, the fiscal year 23 increase, increases the average.

E

Sewer customer's bill by about four dollars and 45 cents per month or 15 cents per day,.

E

So I believe that concludes this section.

A

Thank you, david.

A

I appreciate the presentation, the speed that you went through it but still could follow along.

A

uh With everything, so it's a lot to get through, I'm sure, there's some questions.

A

I would like to just start off with one opportunity to maybe explain uh the.

A

This overflow event, that happened.

A

uh Recently, I don't know if it would be peter that would have been explaining it or terry.

A

Terry, you want to take a crack in just explaining uh that, before we jump into some questions,.

A

Because I know some folks had an interest in that sure we want uh nitty gritty details.

A

Yeah, I think I mean it's it's I think it's helpful to I mean you know we don't need to uh spend.

A

A half hour on it, but I think understanding you know how something happens, maybe getting into.

A

uh The scada system, uh a little bit um for us as a council to better understand all the different.

A

Components that that go into you know kind of making sure that the systems work as they as.

A

They do and and why you know, there's opportunities always for improvement in in those systems. Sure.

D

Well, I can um yeah, I think, some there there was so this all started around may 6th. So on may 6th. We.

D

Have uh we have a scada system for those that are not familiar? It's called the supervisory control.

D

And data acquisition system, so it's constantly pulling our equipment for information that sends.

D

It back connected with that system is also an alarming system. It's all electronically controlled.

D

It runs through ethernet and um on the afternoon of friday, the sixth we had uh a shortage of that.

D

System, you know so the telemetry was not working. We weren't able to get alarms to the on-call.

D

Operators, so if you weren't here, you wouldn't be able to have an alarm condition, so this condition.

D

uh The situation only occurred as a result to for the uh for the collection system and.

D

The pump stations so other facilities that the treatment facilities were working fine, um so.

D

As a response to that, we, you know that there's a couple options that you can look at, but we have.

D

In our particular system, the situation that occurred was a mechanic street at the pump station.

D

So in our particular situation, mechanic street pumps, all the wastewater to pierce island.

D

So as a backup to any alarm condition that couldn't be seen at mechanic street, you had.

D

Pierce island, because it will tell you if there's no flow so there's a whole separate system up at.

D

Pierce island, it's it's constantly measuring stuff. So if there's no flow there, you get an alarm that.

D

Says, hey, there's a problem, um so that's you know each one of our facilities has these different.

D

Systems so there's a benefit that that we have these different layers of alarming conditions.

D

Further to that out in the collection system, where we have combined sewer overflows.

D

There are those overflows are just a pipe. You know that discharges out to the water body and there's.

D

A control structure we call it which essentially is a wall and that wall prevents the wall.

D

Normally routes, the all the waste water to the pump station, if the pump station stops, it builds.

D

Up and there's alarms in there and says: hey we're having a combined sore overflow event.

D

Under normal conditions that happens during wet weather, so in this particular case, what happened.

D

Was um a failure occurred in the electronic components of the pumps at mechanic street.

D

Pump station, so each one of those pumps is has a has. A electronic component called a.

D

Programmable logic, controller: it's a computer! You know it's constantly pulling data back and forth.

D

Through wires- and it says, hey speed up slow down tells it to turn off, tells it to turn on.

D

um In this particular case, there was a fault in the communication portion of that unit and.

D

If we were normally getting alarms, they would have said hey, there's a problem with with that computer.

D

We weren't getting alarms so our as I mentioned earlier. Our second backup was pure silent right.

D

So when this particular fault happened, it's it continued to send the last flow signal.

D

So it didn't go to zero. It was constantly telling pure silent that it was sending an.

D

Elect it was sending an electronic signal that it was that flow was going, so we never got the alarm.

D

Condition at pure silent, so it was no opportunity for someone to say: hey, there's a there's, a problem.

D

So the next layer there is these combined sewer overflows. Where again we have this other.

D

We have this other alarming system and that's cellular based, so you know we received alarms.

D

From that system, when the water built up to the point where it's just about ready to discharge,.

D

And we start to get these alerts and further that we have the alert set up that you know it's either.

D

A wet weather alert, which is a permitted activity through our permit or if it's dry weather you know.

D

It says: hey, there's a dry weather problem, so that's a bigger concern. We dispatched staff out.

D

There and within a half an hour, they were pumping the system down, but there was there was some water.

D

That made it over about 35, 000 gallons, that made it over and discharged out during dry weather from.

D

From the structure, so you know, and as it goes with any of these, we we have to notify. We immediately.

D

Call the shellfish program program with des we call epa and we call um another. The wastewater.

D

Bureau at des, so I notified all of them on saturday immediately after the event and.

D

Then we follow up from that and our follow-up. You know: we've instituted a number of uh additional.

D

Layers of uh protection for the short term, I mean long term the mechanic street pump station, as I.

D

Was mentioning is in need of an upgrade, you know there's there we could certainly improve on the.

D

Electronic and mechanical components there for reliability that will fix some of the situation.

D

That occurred there, but in the short term we put in some other cellular based systems.

D

There so that we have a backup in case we ever have a situation like this occur in the future.

D

Thanks, terry any I don't know if there's anything that you could add to that, but suzanne please.

B

I won't hit the technical, um so I just want to you know some additional points to that. That.

B

Some of you may have questions about, which is the triggering event actually was a.

B

Failure of our first light fiber into the department of public works, and we immediately had.

B

Staff working with first light and with our managed services provider to try and get those.

B

Systems back up and running and they were up and running by saturday evening. As I recall.

B

Second, as terry indicated, notice was immediately provided to the regulatory agencies, which is.

B

Required under law, and as you know, we also notified you, the city council of the event and.

B

Promised an update in terms of what has happened. We are not anticipating any uh action by epa or.

B

Des we have filed this report in terms of what happened. It was a. Is it a couple of things that.

B

Didn't work kind of bad timing in terms of when this all happened um so the way the um regulators.

B

Tend to look at this is, if it's, this typical kind of accidental series of events, um what they.

B

Want to see is that we responded to it promptly and that we're gonna, you know, look at whatever.

B

Additional steps might be taken to prevent this in the future, so we're not anticipating any uh fine.

B

Or other uh adverse action from the regulators, you know it's something we don't want to have happen.

B

Again and that's what they're looking for as well, so this summary, I think, uh provides that thanks.

A

Suzanne um I'll open it up the the questions and someone unorthodox to to ask about.

A

This uh you know an event um in the uh in the budget presentation, but I think it's important to.

A

It illustrates, at least for me, that was a a riveting account really interested in all that.

A

Sort of stuff, but I think it it underscores just how interconnected from a technology.

A

Standpoint from a human standpoint from a you know, mechanical system standpoint, all of this.

A

uh Stuff is, uh and so I think it's a it's a good ground for the questions that we'll likely have on.

A

The budget, so thanks for being uh so prepared on that terry and suzanne all right councillor bagley.

A

Councillor denton councillor tabor assistant, mayor, all right all right, so I have everybody we'll just.

G

I'll I've got a couple of questions here on, should I give them all sure.

G

Okay, so first, if, if you broke down what you just told us about the failure, it was.

G

The plc didn't really have a dead man switch so because that failed, we had a.

G

Detector of last resort, but of course the detector of last resort. When that finally sent the signal.

G

It was too late to prevent any sort of outflow, so we were able to mitigate it because of that sensor.

G

Of last resort, but it would have been ideal if it, the original sensor had sent us the message. Yeah.

D

In this particular case, because the uh because we didn't have the telemetry and the feedback from.

D

The station we couldn't get that okay get that and we have. You know we have 20 wastewater stations.

D

Even if someone was standing there, they wouldn't have necessarily known it happened. Okay, all right.

G

So that's clear to me: um hello, I'm no sewer expert. The first question I have is the the water sales.

G

Trend when I look at this um we've had you know, since fiscal year, 17 development and population.

G

Increase, but what I'm seeing is, overall, our water usage as a city has gone down. Is that correct.

C

Held steady, pretty pretty steady, but again the usage per customer has gone down a bit.

C

But we do have more customers, so that sort of has kept things steady. In that respect, we do think.

C

um And we've looked at development trends and everything that we anticipate, maybe a one percent.

C

One and a half percent increase in the next year or two to come um still budget budgetary-wise. It.

C

It's projected and and we're in line, especially sewer. We just checked this.

C

Today, we're within one percent of of where we were last year, so we're we're well equipped to.

G

Our water supply is is in good shape, especially now that we're out of the drought and our sewer.

G

Capability, let's call it the route. Yes, the return of the haven well is is close.

C

To you know: 750 000, gallons of water. For seven years uh we had to supplement water at peas from.

C

The portsmouth system, so we no longer have to do that, which is, is good news on portion side.

C

We've got new wells that are getting activated in madberry too, so we'll have some peak.

C

Flow demands and then al and his staff have done a great job of.

C

Managing our two sources, both the groundwater and the surface water, so we're we're hoping.

C

To no assurances, though, because we're highly dependent on what the weather wants to do, but.

C

You know we, we think we're in fairly good shape right at the moment. Okay- and I have just two more.

G

Quick questions, hopefully the the first one is the the air force grant and and the other grants.

G

Particularly air force grant is that we're expecting to continue to receive that for the next.

C

Well, the air force. um Certainly, this is a two-year agreement with them. It's a continuum.

C

Of the agreements we've had in place, so I would, I would have to think, though you know nothing's ever.

C

Forever that certainly it's their obligation, they have an epa order that obligates them to.

C

Actually do the treatment, so we are doing that for them, so this would be their cost anyway. So we've.

C

We've really, you know made that argument. They've accepted it and they've been very cooperative.

C

Throughout this too, so you know it's worked worked well for both of us in that respect, so the.

C

Grants one thing that was pointed out: I know it's mentioned that oh this could be one-time monies.

C

And oh, it was just given um hats off to terry, especially the the grants we mentioned here.

C

Are competitive so we especially like the the this water line under the bay there were 240.

C

Applicants we were one of 10 that, were you, know, shortlisted and and got the money. So we you know.

C

We're we're, I won't say, we're overly aggressive about it, but we're certainly you know when the.

C

Opportunity is there. We, we think, we've put forward a pretty good argument and we've been successful.

G

I wouldn't be upset if we were overly aggressive about getting granted.

G

That seems like a great thing and then just looking at the the data from the new sewer.

G

Plant, um the the measurables, it looks like we're doing up to three times better than we.

G

Were before it came online, so I guess to me: it's it's a tremendously. It's working very, very well.

G

um It's a tremendous improvement over what we had before is that correct, or am I missing something.

C

Certainly certainly has designed, and- and uh you know one thing that you know we do look forward to.

C

Having a detailed um sit down will, strictly, you know, be waste water, which does now encompass.

C

Stormwater because of the great bay permit, but you know one thing: terry- can speak to.

C

Better but we'll get into in further detail, you know when we do have those discussions is.

C

Is uh we generally have a a discharge permit for the whole city now, to some degree.

C

And at pierce, island being so low, now that do it really performing well sets us up what.

C

We believe well um overall for that, but did I speak correctly on that? Terry? Yes, yeah? We.

D

Performance wise, so it's removing between 85 and 90 percent, more of the pollutants than what was.

D

There prior so it's literally the difference from that middle beaker to the end beaker.

D

From what it was before to what it is now, so it's it's! It's significant from an environmental.

D

Standpoint well, my nose tells me it's it's working better, but I don't think that's very scientific.

A

All right next, uh thank you. uh Next up, uh counselor denton, uh the assistant mayor and then.

A

Tabor and cancer cook in lombardy. Thank you, anna first, a general comment. Then a comment on the cso.

G

And a question relay to the budget and csos general comment: I'm excited for the development.

G

Of a stormwater utility and essentially incentivizing good behavior for people who.

G

Take care of a stormwater runoff when it comes to csos in general. I just want to thank you.

G

For notifying city council in advance, thank you you for notifying those that signed up for the.

G

Email list and for notifying the general public via twitter. My two years when I was recently not.

G

On the council, I relied on the twitter account after heavy rain events, to see if it was a bad.

G

Idea or not to take the dogs to haven park to run around and the twitter account came about.

G

Several years prior, when I had asked to be possible to put a post at the csos and the post.

G

In haven park and then when there is a cso, just put a sign, some extent that says within the past.

G

48 or 72 hours, however long it takes a title flows notifying the general public that there was a cso.

G

And I think that would be beneficial for the people in the area, along with people like me, whose.

G

Dogs might want to go swimming on hot days and I'm just wondering budget wise would it require.

G

A increase to pay additional staff to simply go out there and put the sign up like what.

G

Would that require if the council wanted to do that as a policy? um uh So so just a few things.

D

For consideration, as you asked the question um we, you know, the history of the twitter account.

D

We, when we started first started talking about cso notification. um We had a program.

D

In place and it automatically distributed not only a notice but also distributed the.

D

Twitter right now, that's a manual function, so the email is a is an automatic function, run.

D

Through an email account, it gets pushed from the from the alarms through a system that goes to an.

D

Email, the email gets automatically redistributes for to those who are interested in signing up.

D

The twitter account is, you know, I see the thing I have to sign in twitter account send it out.

D

So it's very manual at this point, um the updated permit, does have some new requirements as it.

D

Relates to cso notification um there's it has to be done within two hours publicly.

D

um So there are, uh you know, I think, in the context, as we get further into that permit.

D

And look at it, there might be some value in kind of combining what we need there versus.

D

In addition to what you're asking as well, you know, I think, that the the challenge with.

D

With the mill pond as a whole, as you know, you have a kind of a historic water body. It might.

D

Have some sediment issues? uh It's long long time been a combined sewer, overflow discharge area. It's.

D

An urban environment, um even you know, stormwater discharge has a lot of bacteria in it. It's not.

D

A designated swimming area, so you know, if you go to the state des website, you look for designated.

D

Swimming areas and they're designated because they get regularly monitored and.

D

Looked at um so you know this really begs the question whether we should be notifying that.

D

This is really not a recommended area to swim, so I think that's something just to uh think about you.

D

Know from the standpoint of a notice out there, I'm sure that we're not going to have to hire someone.

D

Additional to do that, it would be a question of timeliness and just how we manage that. Thank you.

A

Any other questions, okay, counselor or assistant mayor. Thank your honor. Just a few line item.

H

Questions for clarification, if you don't mind um under the uh sewer division on page 442, uh if you.

H

Could just provide some clarification on the professional services contract.

H

It is line item zero, three, nine, zero, five, four.

D

So this is for lift stations, mechanic street. um No, it's the elections, administrative.

D

Excuse me, I can't hear you sorry. Oh it's um page 442, the collection, administrative portsmouth.

C

Oh that this one here, terry yes, so so that is uh that's actually an increase in cost to cover.

D

um The efforts associated with the combined overflow program.

D

So we've been, we've been uh paying for it kind of where we could in the budget. We decided to.

D

Solidify it in this particular location, so we we hire a company flow assessment services. They.

D

uh Have the instruments they go in the system they calibrate them? They work on me.

D

Regularly um they're in a pretty terrible environment, so they have to be um they're.

D

Pretty labor intensive, but that's what that cost is for. Thank you. um Just a couple more live items.

H

On page 422, um under the distribution meter.

H

Under materials we see a pretty large increase. When I look at obviously we don't have the.

H

Actuals from 22., but we've been budgeted, the same pretty much the same amount and the actual four.

H

21 was you know a little over 60, so I'm just if you could just explain if we know kind of.

H

Where we are year to date this year, certainly well this this. This line is very interesting.

C

You you would bring this up and good catch. I guess um this is actually the purchase of of.

C

Meters, so it's under meters and one thing we did during covid- is we. We actually replaced a few.

C

Fewer meters, so we bought a few less, but we also had an inventory. We do anticipate um and our meter.

C

Administrator uh did look at this number, so we're pretty comfortable with with that.

H

Number I'm getting my replaced this week, so oh there you go um and then one more I apologize.

H

I see a general, obviously increase of in most departments for grit disposal. Is that just the.

H

Increased cost for the landfills, as you mentioned, it is uh so tipping costs generally tipping costs.

D

Is the cost to actually discharge the material charge by ton that generally goes up, but we've.

D

Actually seen the biggest increase has been from the trucking side of it, which is getting driven by.

D

Commodities prices for gasoline and other fuels. Okay, sorry: I had one more in here.

H

Oh, I think that was the last one. Thank you for those clarifications. Thank you.

D

Councillor tabor uh thanks your honor, um a couple of questions. The staffing changes.

F

That you wanted to make, uh I wonder if you could speak to those we're adding a water technician.

F

And we're adding a pre-treatment specialist in brian's area.

F

Could you just explain the rationale for those and what would happen if we didn't do those.

C

I can I'll speak to the first one counselor, um the uh the scada tech. um So so we've spoken a.

C

Lot about the systems that control and operate um our our systems, we have a scada department. Now we.

C

Have a skater manager, and initially it was just him, so he kind of sort of ran all these systems.

C

And he worked with contractors that did a lot of other work, such as wiring and and upgrades, and.

C

Programming, we then, a few years after he was hired. We we brought in a technician who assists him.

C

We then, with the pierce island and the complexity, I think you know, we've got some numbers on the the.

C

Amount of controls and electronic controls in that system um are compounded greatly.

C

um And uh so the the work, the effort, the calibrations and and that so we bought.

C

We brought in another technician. um They have also started to work throughout the.

C

City, so they you know, as we community campus was coming online and some mcintyre building.

C

They kind of do work there. They track those that time and everything, so they have a backlog of work.

C

um When the backlog really builds up, we have to hire contractors to come in, which is more.

C

Expensive, it's more timely, so certainly this is also a split, so 50 of the wage.

C

Would be out of the water division, 50 percent out of sewer, and you know we're fully. You know.

C

Comfortable with with asking for that additional staff member, because um they'll they pay off and.

C

And uh greatly in in what we get out of it as far as the workload and then improvements such.

C

As we're talking about the all the backup systems that terry talked about, we worked.

C

With our scada team to actually develop those for this, you know the mechanic street overflow.

D

The other one I believe you're referring to is on the suicide for the pre-treatment coordinator.

D

Correct so, as I mentioned for the individual permits that we just received uh in draft.

D

Form the both of them require that we institute this federal industrial pre-treatment program.

D

So this person would be uh in charge of implementing that program.

D

There was uh we we've known that this was coming because of the size of the facility and the.

D

uh Nature of the facilities as well so we've been working with a consultant now you'll see.

D

In the line items there was a pretty significant cost to work with a consultant last year. It's.

D

Been significantly reduced this year with the anticipation that would be having an in-house.

D

Staff member take that over it will be a heavy lift for the first couple of years between.

D

Implementing the program making sure that we have covered, we have to go out and survey every.

D

Business in the community to start to make sure that we're covering everyone that should have.

D

An actual permit, after that you're looking at site inspections permits for those facilities.

D

Annual sampling, some of them have specific requirements in the in those permits and then.

D

There's a fair amount of documentation, so any kind of violation or excursion gets rigorously.

D

Documented at the epa's requirements, okay and second question um the.

F

Chemical line that you refer to goes up: 33 percent about 400 000 um and that's not volume. That's.

F

Almost all price right- that's price, yes- um is that a temporary um supply chain kind of we certainly.

C

Hope so uh we've learned a lot. um We both of our as I mentioned al pratt and glenn wilson, are both.

C

Zooming in here, but uh they have have really drilled into this and uh what what we found out.

C

It's it's! It's fascinating to some degree, you know we, chlorine is, is one of the big disinfectants we.

C

Use we use it on both sides pouring certainly in the water, for bacteria and and keeping the water.

C

Clean in that respect, and then on the wastewater side, we have to chlorinate to get rid of the bugs.

C

On the discharge, but chlorine is used in all manufacturing and only one percent goes to.

C

Water and wastewater in the country so we're we're down the pecking order when it comes to.

C

This so when we talked about you've, seen effects of covid and other costs that have hit labor.

C

You name it so the chemicals have have been hit hard. The trucking costs. On top of that.

C

And then you compound all that with the storms that occurred, the hurricanes down in louisiana.

C

And texas, and that's where the refine that's where this stuff is made, so those places had.

C

Significant hits to where they, you know, weren't able to manufacture as much. We don't believe that.

C

You know just because we're one percent that we'd ever get cut off. In fact, we we may be one percent.

C

But we're on the top of the list for priority, I believe, but cost wise, there's no relief. There.

C

For that, so we do hope. This is a a blip and that like gas prices and other things like that, that.

C

You know we'll we'll see them come down and bounce back of the manufacturing and that as well.

C

But great we do. We did bid these so that and and again credit to staff. Our bid used to be out of.

C

Line with the budget, but we bid just prior to finalizing the budget, so we would know for this.

C

Year what it was going to be- and certainly I guess that's much better than saying. Oh, you know, here's.

C

Here's our chemical costs and then whoa. You know 400 000, hit after the budget and suddenly have.

C

To inform everybody, oh, we just got our bids and they're they're in high yeah thanks. You know I.

F

Used to think hospitals and newspapers were the two businesses that were 20, 24, 7 and not fault.

F

Tolerant but sewer and water is even more and I just admire what you do. No faults in newspapers.

F

You know the operational excellence comes through, so thank you just uh before we go off at.

A

John's question just uh to understand that there's three positions over two departments.

A

And I'm just gonna, because they're split uh positions just want to restate.

A

One is in the skated apartment. That's split over two one is in the pre-treatment side, which is.

A

uh Wholly owned on the sewer side and then there's a utility mechanic split over too, can you just.

A

Speak quickly to the utility mechanic well, utility mechanic is so these facilities have treatment.

C

Operators that you know do maintenance of facility and stuff and they have a very high level of.

C

Of skill sets needed and the day-to-day work when we talk to them number one we're having difficulty.

C

Acquiring and getting you know, new operators in in the door we're actually down staff both.

C

On the water and the wastewater side there, so we hope to be able to staff up very soon.

C

But you know for some of the day-to-day work. That's not necessarily so you know things like.

C

Mowing and just you know, fixing fences and you know just the the routine maintenance work that.

C

Needs to happen in a big facility with lots of buildings and equipment and stuff, so this.

C

um This would solve that to some degree so that the operators can focus on operating, and this.

C

Utility mechanic would provide the service of, and then it would rotate amongst all the facilities.

C

That person, you know doing the mowing doing the landscaping work that has to happen inside the.

C

Fences and stuff of all these buildings. Thank you, um counselor cook, then counselor embardi.

A

Oh yeah and then uh counselor blaylock and then we'll go for second bites of the apple. uh This.

A

System tamir all right and thank you, your honor, um so I think I want to first preface this by saying.

I

um Thank you for the very good planning that went into preparing for nitrogen permanente.

I

I say this as a former resident of exeter, so I understand very much. The planning that took place.

I

In order to keep rates at a steady level, a steady increase because communities that didn't have that.

I

Level of preparation really saw huge increases in their costs for water and sewer.

I

With that said, and the debt service coming online this year, I guess my question is: is how long do we.

I

Anticipate to have such a high level of debt service, that's impacting the sewer rates in.

I

Particular and a follow-on to that um we're taking we're borrowing essentially from net position.

I

Which, um which means we're not um replenishing that how long do we anticipate um the net position.

I

To be suspect to be sustainable in borrowing from that position because it looks like with the.

I

Current weight rate projections we're still going to be falling behind for about five years, at least.

C

Well, there are a number of factors built into the rate model. I know david.

C

And so maybe we can bring david hyder in to speak a bit more about some of the other.

C

Particulars, the the the rate model looks at and it does financing being a big one and we do know.

C

As as we look to the out years, we do have a six year, capital improvement plan that you know we we.

C

Can perhaps make some adjustments? We also look to again future grants and future financing through.

C

Srf versus bonding of some projects, but he is on david on yeah. It's just not popping.

C

There he is, you hear me, okay, sure, um yeah I'd be happy to answer that. So I think.

E

The pierce island loan, I believe, is a 20-year loan, and so um you know that debt service is.

E

Pretty steady over that that period of time, um but it doesn't mean that we're trying to play catch-up.

E

That entire time, so what one of the slides showed, particularly on the sewer side that were.

E

Our revenues are increasing to where we're getting to beginning to cover the um the cash.

E

Funded components of the of the sewer expenses, and so as we play it forward, it looks like right now.

E

We will be using up a large portion of that in that position over the next four to five years.

E

um And then, at that point in time we would essentially be at a position where, as net.

E

Position gets close to what we want to maintain as a minimum. Our revenues and expenditures.

E

Would be aligned is the goal and that's something that we evaluate on an annual basis.

E

To look at um you know: what's changing in terms of operating expenses, capital expenses, I know there's.

E

Some potential changes in the future in terms of how capital projects will actually play out on the.

E

On the sewer side- and so that's part of it as well, and so one of the things that the city doesn't do.

E

Is adopt a you know, multiple year rate plan, you're evaluating this on an annual basis to make sure.

E

That you're able to adjust course as need be so you know the plan is that you would use up that.

E

Position then, that you'd eventually be at that point, where you're at a steady state, you know.

E

Three percent increase to keep up with inflation. If, hopefully, that's what we're at.

E

At some point in the future, but that's really the plan at this point.

I

Thank you and I have actually one more quick question.

I

um I I noticed a significant increase in leave at termination in the water division funds.

I

Do we have the same employment rules in sewer water that we do in other.

I

Departments in the city or do are we just anticipating some retirements.

I

That unexpected retirement payouts.

J

um So with the leave it termination for the enterprise funds, um we do not have the same.

J

Like stabilization fund that we do for the general fund, because it's actually on a full.

J

Accrual basis of accounting, so when we close the books at the end of the year, um we have to see.

J

Like who actually left and make an adjustment and expense that at that time, we did up it.

J

This year, because we are seeing that there may be some individuals leaving just keeping up but.

J

Unfortunately, we can't implement that kind of stabilization fund with those. Thank you.

A

All right next up, counselor ombardi. uh Thank you mayor. um I think most of my line item items.

H

Have been addressed so thank you for that. um I did the one thing I did see on the.

H

Budget and rate summary, the water division is property tax and I'm just wondering what that is.

H

um You point to the page: it's 4 11.

C

We have to bring judy back up shooting for that again.

C

Property tax is that on the expense side- yeah, that's, um oh yeah. We pay property taxes to dover.

C

Okay, the bellamy reservoir and that I thought you were speaking to revenue side. So no, no, no, no.

H

Okay, good- and um the other question I have are actually well could be budgetary. I guess, but.

H

I read a little while ago- and I don't remember exactly when about a developer wanting to.

H

Develop a parcel of land adjacent to the bellamy reservoir is. What is this? What happened with that.

H

Well, there are, oh, so, the the watershed, the watershed, the watershed is 22 square miles, yeah.

C

So there are developments, you know it. It stretches all the way up to nottingham. um So it's in dover.

C

It's in barrington um so and- and I thought it was close by the reservoir uh yeah they're they're.

C

Requested and we actually have participated, I mean we, we talked specifically about you.

C

Know trying to acquire conservation, easements and land around directly around the reservoir.

C

But we've actually worked with communities to to upstream um work on preserving some land.

C

As well, we've done some matching funds and things like that through the years.

C

So that's that's likely it but yeah there's a huge amount of development pressure.

C

Upstream, um if you've ever been on route, 125 yeah, calif's area- I mean it's- it's grown up.

C

And you know the drainage there and, and they don't have the stormwater permits. We.

C

Have there so we have to work on with with the communities and and fortunately madbury is a.

C

Great partner in protecting the reservoir, but you know we've got to be vigilant way upstream as well.

H

uh And then um the last thing I mentioned was was about the um storm water and you.

H

Mentioned and again this is not a budgetary thing, um but you mentioned street cleaning.

H

Is very important um and you're going to um notify people when when they're well, you know I'm glad.

C

You uh that follow-up jamie did mention it. um We don't really need to bring jamie back in at the at.

C

The moment since he's uh zooming in, but um so when we sweep the streets, which we have a schedule and.

C

You probably hear the street sweeper and early in the morning and stuff I mean if it goes down the.

C

Street and there's cars parked in the cur. You know along the curb. You can't clean that and that's.

C

You know a lot where a lot of stuff collects so we'll be working on when it's no parking.

C

It's not going to be like no parking for days and days and days, it'll be a scheduled thing whereby.

C

You know this street and this this curb needs to be clear so that you know we can get our.

C

Equipment to actually do a better job sweeping um there and uh that that's the plan there'll be.

C

More on that, as as we you know put it together, it won't be a tow thing like uh like, like for a.

C

Snow storm or anything like that at first, but you know you know I I know whenever I'm visiting.

C

New york city, they have odd even days. You know, there's certain days a week. I've always make.

C

Sure to know where to park that, oh, it's not tonight that you have to have your car moved.

C

But but things like that, so it would become a schedule and I think, we'll probably pilot.

C

Piloted in some areas, and just as a lot of things get rolled out with the city we'll make sure to do.

C

A real extensive outreach and best we can to make it happen. I know my neighbors and I.

H

Keep the grates clean. Thank you, but um you know the street. The street cleaner comes.

H

You know it's early in the morning and there's cars parked and so they clean the middle of the.

H

Street and it's yeah well not effective. That helps somewhat. It's not the case everywhere.

C

um And then, of course, we have our crews out that do do that as well. So I commend that.

H

I recommend that you're going to do that. Yes, all right! Thank you, councillor, blaylock. Thank you.

H

Honor and thank you peter thank you, brian. um Thank you, terry david and jamie for your presentation.

H

um I also want to thank you, it's nice, to hear that we're taking steps to prevent that cso. The.

C

Issue that happened from happening again, that's very encouraging to hear.

K

My question is on page 427 under the budget summary under the sewer division.

K

I just noticed that the administrative overhead and notice we kind of seems.

H

Like we spent 100 grand more than we had budgeted for in fy 21, and it seems to be.

A

Going up um going up another hundred grand- I just don't know if you could touch on that. So.

J

Excuse me, so that's the um that's, the water sewer overhead that we charge. So we do a formula to base.

J

Office square footage and certain percentage of each department, like the legal department, um the.

J

Dpw, director finance department and so forth, so we calculate an overhead to charge to water and.

J

Sewer the general fund so you'll see that as a revenue in the general fund side. Thank you.

A

The assistant mayor, thank you and concert tabor, just one quick question. This may be more of a judy.

H

Question um in obviously in every department we have assistance uh for water and sewer and we're.

H

We're pretty budgeted flat, we heard from the welfare department um the other day that we.

H

Are seeing less ask for assistance? Yes, we are so that assistance program, the ellen tully in.

J

Welfare assists us in um identifying those or helping those who need that assistance, but the.

J

Expense is from the water and sewer side or the discount is from the water and suicide.

J

And judy you have the statistics, we we don't have many on this program and let me just thank you.

J

So we only have um currently 20 participants in this program that they get 25 percent off.

J

Their water super bill. That's a very small number. We have done. um We have made several.

J

Attempts to to help those or to reach out, um but I believe that just some people are just.

J

Too, proud to want to take that assistance. We had talked today judy- and I talked today about.

J

Maybe messaging it a little bit more, maybe being able to put it on some of the bills that you know.

J

That reaches out to people as if you're having a hardship or hard time. You know please reach out to.

J

That to us, do you will you have the statistics? Do you have the the year to date or what that.

H

Annually we are we're looking at because it looks like it's budgeted at around 7 500 in each of the.

J

Yeah, so it's not it's not very much! It's because typically you're going to find the one people who.

J

Qualify might be more seniors, who are not actually utilizing or using as many units as a family.

J

um And it is based off of the, uh I think, it's 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

J

So you know that's that could be something that we want to look at as a policy and maybe change.

J

That and I think that would be something that the council could talk about. Thank you for that.

A

Let's see uh counselor tabor and then counselor morale.

F

The uh I'm looking at our our variable costs that vary with the volume like chemicals.

F

Like sludge- and you know we're seeing big escalations in that.

F

And I was looking at a comparison of us to other cities and kind of geeking out on all the.

F

Volume comparison we for 8 300 hookups, we have a tremendous volume of water and I attribute.

F

That to our industrial, yes, commercial, you're, quite correct about that. Yes- um and I think lanza was- is.

F

Twenty percent of our entire water volume fifteen fifteen to twenty percent. Yes, so looking at those.

F

These big jumps in our variable costs. Should we look at that? Second tier. The gap between the first.

F

Tier and the second tier I mean the first tier is up to 10 units and the average residential person.

F

Is five units, but those big industrial users drive our volume and should we take another look at that.

C

They they go over the 10, very quick, so the big users are all in that over over 10 category, but.

C

You are quick, correct, uh 35 of our customer base, revenue wise comes from residential, which is.

C

You know we have about 5 500, residential customers and everybody else is commercial and and.

C

Industrial, so 65 percent are the bigger customers, so they all they're all in that second tier.

C

Category um already, but we could take a a a finer look at that and I'll work with david.

C

Hyder to maybe provide a little more analysis uh right to that right, and the second question has to.

F

Do with the sludge I think we've talked about this in the past, but as these tipping fees go.

F

Up you know the sludge is 70 percent water. So at some point does it make sense to get a dryer and.

F

I think there were some small dryers that manufactured in china that you could take.

F

The water out and pledge less cost to get rid of the sludge. There are dryers uh that they're.

D

Not cheap um they're not inexpensive. We did uh counselor denton and asked in the past for us.

D

To do kind of through the sustainability committee, look at kind of the concept of anaerobic digestion.

D

We tagged on to that idea of also looking at dryers. There have been some recent adjustments.

D

Though, on the regulatory level, the department of justice, I think it was said, hey we don't want any.

D

Basically, any any combustion of sludges and, as I understand it, um what I've heard through.

D

Colleagues is that because there's an air emission associated with a dryer.

D

That they're they're really not getting permitted at this time, so I think that there's still some.

D

Work going on at the level with the epa trying to figure out how to manage the.

D

Regulations associated with pfas- and you know a dryer, although it doesn't have a combusted.

D

Necessarily but the dryer is heated, um so there's there's still an emission there and I think that.

D

They're still trying to work a lot of that out and I don't think it's a perfect answer at the moment.

D

Thanks councilman um to follow up on one of the things that counselor taber said. I know.

H

That other utilities, when you're talking about commercial use versus residential use, will charge.

H

Different rates, since I actually pay utilities for my commercial business and for my residential home.

H

And I've compared those, and so I think that we could really take a look at what the difference.

H

In rates are because I was always amazed that my tiny little office could be twice the size bill.

H

As my giant house in some utility matters, so right and surcharges, and things like that- I know when.

C

We did the initial rate study. We looked at that a little bit and again, um you know david could speak.

C

To that um remotely here, but we can also look into that too, um as as we look at at the other side,.

C

Yeah, um the other thing I want to say is: have we looked at absolutely every sort of capital project.

H

Or other expense line that might be able to be covered by arpa. I know you had about 2.

H

Million that was covered under those funds, but I was curious whether or not you thought there.

H

Was any other availability of using some marker money to cover some of the capital expenses? We we.

C

Certainly, um all are we we submit to the state aid or the srf fund list, so we've got projects.

C

On those lists, that's generally when, when these funds come available, they reach out to those.

C

Which which have helped us again, especially on the wastewater side, we had a lot of uh of these.

C

Projects that got the grants were already on that list, so we're certainly looking for that.

C

Any anything over a million dollars um bonded capital project. We we really pushed to do that.

D

We're also looking at uh we've submitted a number of projects through the congressionally directed.

D

Spending request um so there's some projects that we're attempting to get funding um from other.

D

Sources as well there, I think, it's all, you know through a similar program but um and there there.

D

Are additional um opera funds that might become available so the state's pretty good about keeping.

D

Us up to date on how they're gonna distribute those funds and we'll continue to submit through.

D

The uh pre-application project process that brian referred to it covers storm water, water.

D

Waste water or clean water- they refer to it, as um so, we'll continue to put our projects.

D

On those lists, so that, if an opportunity pops up, we can try to capture it great. Thank you.

A

Councillor cook, thank you, your honor, I'm sorry, I hadn't one more question. After hearing some of the.

I

Questions about commercial and industrial that I just forgot to ask earlier um there um there.

I

Was an explanation early on in the presentation about a request from lanza to increase capacity.

I

At our peas facility- and um I think it would be really helpful if we could understand what.

I

Happens when a request comes in like that, because in an effort to increase capacity.

I

Clearly, this expense clearly there's additional permitting. How do we handle that from the.

I

Industrial side, as far as covering costs with say a corporation, that's making a request like that.

D

Sure so we um I think, that's part of what we're intending to try and cover.

D

When we get the opportunity to have a work session, it is, it is complex, it gets detailed.

D

We don't have all those um details ironed out at this point from the standpoint of this particular.

D

Request, the first thing we had to do was be because it exceeded the capacity of our facility.

D

Was that to ask the epa so that that process is pretty uh pretty you know it's a federal process.

D

So making that request for an updated permit was one part and that took.

D

uh Three and a half years to get that so that it was out there for a long time.

D

Now now becomes the hard part, and the more challenging part is to figure out all those.

D

Other details, which is you know, part of what we need to have a discussion about.

G

Counselor bagley um just kind of a follow-up. uh When I look through the budget, everything says you.

G

Know to meet or exceed uh you know, epa or state or federal guidelines. Would it be fair to say that a.

G

Lot of the cost of water treatment and sewer sewer is driven by the need to meet these guidelines.

G

Yeah, yes, so our hands are tight in a lot of cases because just put point the pipe into this.

D

100 million dollars at pierce island yeah yeah. It is, I mean the you know, as was pointed out earlier,.

D

You saw for sewers 50 capital, um the long-term control plan. You know, I think we've spent.

D

Right now, probably in excess of 70 70 million dollars on sewer separation projects.

D

You know that's a program that requires us to minimize the amount of.

D

Combined sewer overflow long term that program isn't done, we have to re-evaluate it in.

D

2024 um and then after we re-evaluate it, we identify what we have to do to get to ultimately.

D

Get to zero or to the point, where we're no longer impacting water quality, which is basically pretty.

D

Close to zero, the treatment plant was a necessary upgrade. The permits come with new requirements so.

D

Those get renewed every five years so when those permits get renewed, sometimes we have to adjust.

D

The treatment process, um so that there is, you know all these things really are- are heavily.

D

Driven by that permit you know, none of this stuff is really elective for the most part. Great. I just.

G

Thought that might be helpful for some of the people watching at home that you know a.

G

Lot of what we're doing, why it's great to have um environmentally friendly sewer and obviously it's.

G

Highly important to have great drinking water um there's there's a lot of regulation that we have.

G

To follow it's not really optional. Absolutely! That's correct! Thank you. Any other questions.

B

I have a couple points I could clarify sure be helpful. um So first uh you know we tend to speak.

B

About the arpa funds, rather generally but they're, actually a number of buckets of those funds so.

B

What you've been hearing about in terms of the arpa funds that we've gotten on the water and the.

B

Sewer side, that's one bucket, that's separate and distinct. Those are separate and distinct programs.

B

From the other funds that we are looking to have a whole public hearing process about there's the.

B

Four to five million that is left from the sort of 12 million two tranches that we got or are about.

B

To get that second tranche, um so I just wanted it to be clear that there is still this other bucket.

B

Of money um that there's going to be more public process about and get input in terms of how we.

B

Spend that and then there are these other programs that are also arpa related that are just for water.

B

Sewer cyber security projects and that's where we've been aggressively going after the funds.

B

In those categories as well so just to help clarify that um and then just to kind of tie up.

B

A little bit on the expansion of peas, so what has been helpful? Is this draft permit? That was just.

B

Released by epa, and so what we're anticipating is that when this you know this permit gets to final.

B

That's going to help us develop the conversations that we need to have and the information we need.

B

To have to come back to the city council, do some work sessions, explain what we're looking.

B

What we're thinking about in terms of participation and timing, and so that'll.

B

All be coming, and it's now starting to roll now that we have this permit because it has extra you.

B

Know, testing requirements and other conditions that help us better define what the needs are.

A

Great thank you. um I had two questions before we go to public comment. um One uh a.

A

Former uh counselor uh trace would always ask how the bugs doing um how are the bugs uh working it.

A

Seems like they're working well uh when I'm looking at on your presentation slide. 14.

A

We're well below um you know, to meet or exceed, um but we don't have. The last six months of data is.

A

Do we would it be fair to say that this trend line continues low, it does we, uh we didn't include the.

D

Last six months, just because we couldn't fit it on the graph, and we really wanted to demonstrate.

D

You know that what happened before the upgrade and what happened after the you know after we turned.

D

It on the bugs are working overtime, okay um and doing very well at it great um and then on the.

A

um Just on the uh the the stormwater utility, um a common and then a question, uh um I'm.

A

Personally, excited uh again from the opportunity to align incentives around you know the behavior.

A

That we want to see as a city uh to lower costs potentially in other areas. Is it fair to say that.

A

If we took a, we would see a similar breakdown in terms of commercial versus residential in terms of.

A

Those paying you said it's 68 percent of uh was it 68 percent of the the sewer and.

A

Water are used by commercial entities versus residential, and today's did I get that right.

A

65 30. water use yes on the water use. Is it somewhere on the similar for sewer? Yes, would.

A

We expect the same for uh a uh stormwater utility, well, that that analysis again.

C

Very good question because uh that analysis really depends on the property. So what's.

C

Often done is called residential equivalent, so you have a property, so many square footage. I.

C

Will ask jamie to to jump in here because he can talk about what our effort is going to be.

C

To actually fully identify you know, property we've got higher resolution.

C

Ortho photos and things like that, where our consultant will go in and actually drill into.

C

Properties, it won't be so individual that, like each property, has a exact assessment, but there.

C

Will be a general makeup of that jamie? Are you able to jump in on that quickly? Yeah.

F

You know we're we're we just contracted to to perform this study, but looking at.

F

Past recommendations of our own uh stormwater management plans and and similar models.

F

uh You know there are options out there for how you determine these equivalent.

F

Residential units, but basically we find what the average impervious area is for the average.

F

Residential property in the city and the field be assessed based on that area. um So if you figure.

F

Your average house maybe has uh uh two thousand twenty five hundred square feet of impervious.

F

Surface, that's gonna be significantly smaller than the commercial uh locations that are gonna.

F

Have several you know, tens of thousands of square feet of impervious surface, so yeah.

F

I think to answer your question, you know you would see a similar um sort of uh distribution of the.

F

Of the responsibility going to commercial industrial locations versus the residential.

F

But that's all stuff that you know we'll have to work out through this feasibility study. Okay,.

A

So, to give, I guess more of a concrete example um and then maybe uh try to answer this. So if.

A

If we're going to be charging for uh essentially storm water and the amount of impervious service.

A

That exists on a property that doesn't let the storm water go into the ground, and thus we have.

A

To treat it in some way, that's the that's the idea right behind that correct right and then.

A

um And so, where a commercial use you know I don't mean to to to pick on walmart, but it's the biggest.

A

Parking lot that comes to mind. uh They typically are not being picked up in terms of an enormous.

A

Amount of water usage uh sewer usage, the bathrooms are clean and great in there, but people don't go.

A

To walmart to go to the bathroom, um so they are not really a commercial user that is uh paying.

A

Maybe their fair share when it comes to the cost associated with that giant parking lot and having.

A

To deal with all that that that stormwater runoff, that we will capture with this utility and and.

C

And you know the pro forma on this is essentially they would be pro-rated and, as jamie said, you know.

C

Their square footage multiplied by those number of units. So let's say that amount of property.

C

Amounts to the equivalent of 50 residential, so they would pay. You know 50 times that monthly rate.

C

But then again they would be incentivized. So if walmart turned around and said.

C

Okay, we're going to get rid of 50 parking spaces that never get parked in anyway.

C

And we're going to rip that out and we're going to put a gravel wetland in or we're going to put some.

C

Bmp that treats the storm water just like public works did we have huge storm water.

C

Treatment now on the back side of public works by the uh the ballpark, so those things will all.

C

Factor in so yes- and this will be again as it's been done across the country.

C

You do go to the user, so when you have more flat impervious surface you gotta, you pay more because.

C

You have that rain just runs off and goes into our pipes. Awesome all right thanks for that guys again.

A

Looking forward to that, coming towards for the council to start that process and the discussion.

A

um Next up, we have public comment, there's no other questions, we'll move on to public comment.

B

There is no one on soon there's no other than staff. There's no one on zoom.

A

Right now, so, if you have a question, please come up to the the podium.

L

Hey druda 280 south street. um I thought a lot of the questions that I was going to ask.

L

Were answered excellent, um the one thing I was looking at was the biggest jumps in the trends and.

L

On page 407, I'm in the water division and uh the professional contracting services, uh I think.

L

This was asked by councillor tabor, but I wasn't really clear on the answer. We went up from fy21.

L

We budgeted 197, we came in at 128, then in fy 22, we budgeted 277 and I don't know where we are now.

L

And now we're up to 7 28.. So the question would be.

L

Is this based on actual page 407. um and uh why why would we have that increase uh the next.

L

Question uh I noticed on page 409 and this is in the water, and I think it's also in the sewer.

L

That a lot of our usage is based on uh 2018 and, uh if I recall in 2018 uh we didn't know anything.

L

About lonza or anything else, so I guess would it be a good suggestion at this time to update.

L

Based on current commercial and residential usage of, and to uh do an update to that study.

L

uh The next question I have was on um every uh all: the discussion was on the the uh interest.

L

Rates going up on on the future funding and for me I can't remember, on the state revolving funds.

L

I can't remember if the if we were locked in or it floats with some kind of rate, that that goes.

L

Forward it would uh really help me to understand if I could get the answer to that question.

L

uh The last thing, I think that everybody else hit on the performance measures.

L

This is in water. On page 415, we have millions of gallons of service, water and ground water.

L

And the same, I would ask this: have the same request as many of you. If we could get the the.

L

Division between commercial and residential. That would give you a really good idea of.

L

How how the cost could be allocated on that? Next I go to the sewer division on page 427 and like.

L

I said uh the questions were asked that I was going to ask the one question that I do have.

L

On sludge grit and grid removal, um fy 21 budget, we budgeted 960 000. We only had.

L

We only spent 559 and then for 22 we had 810 and then we went down to 795.. So I guess with all the.

L

Talk about increased costs there, I I my question would be: why are we going down in that one area.

L

um The next question, or I guess comment I would have on this- is in the sewer, the transfer to.

L

Storm water, basically you're, looking at the residents pay into the general fund or our tax.

L

Dollars go into the general fund, we're funding the stormwater either through uh the general.

L

Fund, which is property taxes or through the fees that are charged by the sewer. So in transferring.

L

The fees to a um a revenue center, it would probably actually hopefully help the residents.

L

uh I think that's all my questions because uh you guys covered everything. uh The only other.

L

Thing I would ask on page 435, I'm still in sewer uh the sewer budget on the performance measures.

L

um The one question there on fy, 20, 21 and 22 on the volume of combined overflows are those actual.

L

Numbers, or was this budgeted numbers because it doesn't really say was this this? What you were.

L

Thinking or what really happened, and I guess the next question would be: are you going to.

L

Dare to estimate fy23 on that. Thank you. Thank you. Petra.

H

Esther kennedy 41 picarina, thank you, everyone and I thank you for the cso explanation. I just want.

H

To make sure that you all know this isn't one time if you look at your own books or your information.

H

And it gives you times that we've had other situations where we've had a problem with buying.

H

Sewer overflows and a lot of them, I know we're in um during rain events.

H

But we have had other dry, so just keep that in mind, I think, is something that really does wreck.

H

Havoc with our water columns, the other thing um I couldn't find in there and I know a lot of.

H

Communities are now doing research on viral and viruses in the in the sewage.

H

And and how it's wreaking havoc on shellfish beds, so I'm not sure what we were doing and.

H

I couldn't see any increase or some of the chemicals that um I've researched. We might need.

H

In your documents, so at some point maybe we can get an update on that.

H

Like everything else, the budget has gone up, the sewers has gone up, the water's gone up.

H

Registration for cars is going up, and so I guess my question is what is the overall citizen.

H

With all these new fees, with all this new information money with all these new.

H

Increases what is the true amount that the irish citizen is going to be? Spending extra for 2023.

H

And I don't know how we are going to be getting our answers and the last uh nights we've asked.

H

A lot of questions I appreciate getting an answer tonight on one of them, but my question is: is how.

H

What's the plan to answer the citizens questions and and getting the data back to them? So if.

H

We uh I'm, assuming maybe we'll get it the last night, but um that would be a question for the the.

H

Council, thank you and again we have to get this these things down a little bit. Thank you. Esther.

K

Good evening paige trace 27 hancock street uh your honor, mr mayor, I'm sure the bugs are doing well.

K

This is a time where I applaud all of you for trusting.

K

In your staff, because this is a topic- that's not pretty it's dirty, it's ugly. At times,.

K

And they know a hell of a lot more than all of us combined, but I will tell you this: the.

K

Fact of the matter is councillor denton. Do not let your dog swim in south mill pond.

K

um Two million gallons were dumped into south mill pond legally, not legally wet weather event.

K

Dry weather event: 2 million gallons. Let me put that into perspective. If you thought.

K

About a gasoline tanker that fills up a gasoline station, that's about 9, 000, gallons that they hold.

K

Now take the gasoline out and put raw sewage in it. Take a long line, 250 of them.

K

Each one of them dumping into south mill- pond- that's 2 million gallons 250.

K

Tankers, that's not acceptable. I don't. I I'm thrilled that you're going to have work sessions.

K

Because it's complicated and no one better than terry desmarais can explain some of this to you.

K

And suzanne woodland has a pretty good handle on it. Also, the fact is that p's waste water treatment.

K

Facility is going to need to expand because of lonza, but peas is complicated. Lonza doesn't.

K

Produce the regular normal nitrogen that you and I think of lonzo produces recalcitrant nitrogen.

K

And it has to be treated differently than regular nitrogen. This is all.

K

This isn't the night for this. This is the budget, but this is why it's so complicated.

K

This is why, um when we were talking about the fact of how wonderful it was that the city.

K

Has budgeted for the bond that's paying for pierce island so that we aren't all whack.

K

Like exeter was it's not the nitrogen, with all due respect, it's the the cost of the project.

K

And the cost goes up, but the fact is, we have a very complicated system out there.

K

It does have little bugs and the bugs aren't happy in cold weather, which is why.

K

Yes, mr mayor, I used to ask about the bugs, because we need to keep those bugs warm and safe and happy.

K

That aside, there are many things in this city did how many of you knew that we had a water company.

K

In this town in 1793, there are logs hollowed out at strawberry bank that were the original pipes.

K

You could join into that water company. It was sort of a bit like a co-op, condo kind of thing. If you.

K

Paid your money, you could get drinking water from the logs. If you didn't tough luck, but the fact is.

K

That when I brought up as a counselor long ago, islington street phase two is vitally important.

K

It's not as much as I'd love to give everybody fresh, new, sidewalks and pretty trees. It's not.

K

About that, it's about what's underground, it's the pipes, the hundred-year-old water pipes, underground.

K

It's the sewer pipes that have yet to be separated.

K

That's part of the consent decree second modification.

K

And that's the end of my lecture for tonight and I hope it wasn't a lecture. But I'm saying.

K

This is one of those instances where it's trust, trust your staff, trust your experts.

K

But every once in a while verify, because 2 million gallons into south mill pond.

K

Is not acceptable, there has to be another way. Thank you very, very much. Thank you.

A

Any paige on zoom yeah, if there's anyone on zoom who would like to speak, please raise your hand.

A

Going once going twice, okay, we will um adjourn I'd like to remind everyone uh that tomorrow.

A

I'm gonna sneeze the uh we will be having a uh a discussion again. Three counselors.

A

uh Each 5 30 at the middle school 7 o'clock, at both fire station 2 and the senior center.

A

Will be joined by staff and that's you know it's. We got rules uh in terms of the you know.

A

How these things uh work uh from a a public uh comment session, uh but that's more of a dialogue.

A

So bring your questions uh we'll do our best to answer them. uh We have budget review on monday.

A

uh We will be having public comment um there as well uh and we'll try to work that in so that.

A

uh We can uh hear from you again uh before uh discussion um and.

A

Thank you, everyone and have a great night, and hopefully the celtics bounce back tomorrow and.

A

Appreciate it portsmouth stay safe.

A