Minutes – May 21 2013

Minutes of Prudential Committee Meeting

May 21, 2013

Jericho Fire District No. 1

Attendees: John Irving, Mac Lippert, Fred Lavenberg, Les Allen

The meeting was relocated to Les Allen’s house when the Library was found closed. We hope that this didn’t inconvenience too many.

Les reported that P&P Septic pumped out the sediment from the filter back wash settling tank. This is the manganese that was captured by the filter. Total contents pumped out was 3,000 gal. Of which more than 2/3 appeared to be manganese sludge.

We received Green Mountain Engineering’s report of their State required annual inspection of our manganese backwash and capture system, conducted on April 25, 2013. This is referred to as Underground Injection Control (UIC) and a unique State permit is required to operate this portion of our system. This permit has not been issued and we operate under the former permit issued 1/30/1995. There are some fundamental deficiencies; an insufficiently designed capacity of the leach field to support the filter backwash needs and evidence of leach field failure. Additionally, the leach field junction box isn’t buried deep enough. Replacing the leach field is in our future and we will need to plan for this unplanned expenditure. Les will ask GM Engineering for an estimate.

Fred reported that he is expecting a schedule for the system distribution line flush from S.O.S. We will communicate this to our customers when we know, for awareness of temporary service loss.

Regarding the recent water service shortage (reservoir refill shut-down), we discussed the cause and related communications with our operator, S.O.S. Apparently a control wire was dislodged during a recent filter control replacement. This was work done by Culligan, subcontracted by S.O.S. We depend upon S.O.S. for their technical support and also for their management of any sub-contracted maintenance. Fred will follow-up with Kevin to see if and how we can secure more timely awareness of maintenance work being done on our system without increasing billable work.

Fred reported that S.O.S. requested authorization to buy an additional Chlorine pump. This is an necessary element in our system, not only for the sanitary effect but for the functioning of our manganese filter. The expenditure for this filter, approximately $800, was approved.

The conversion of our reservoir building from LP gas to Natural gas is still pending an agreement between Vt Gas and the Lerners on who’s property a gas line is preferred to originate.

Brush-hogging our lower property once this summer was approved. Les will contact Charlie.

Fred will seek through our customer billing, an update to our customer e-mail listing and the telephone emergency call system.

Fred will discuss the needed financial audit with Brian Stevens to get it scheduled.

Respectfully submitted

Leslie Allen, Clerk

JFD#1