Minutes – August 20 2013

Minutes of Prudential committee Meeting

August 20, 2013

Jericho Fire District No. 1

Attendees: Fred Lavenberg, Mac Lippert, Brian Stevens, Les Allen

Brown water: The recent multiple customer reports of brown water was discussed. Our System operator responded to a number of questions intending to identify the cause. Included in his response was; 1) the distribution line flush performed in June went according to plan and the water at each flush point ended with clean water, 2) the reservoir water with weekly observations, looks clean, 3) The filter back-wash reaches clean water discharge, The filter media treatment with chlorine instead of permanganate was manufacturer recommended and appears to provide an improvement.

The opinion of the operator, with our support, is that individual service lines from the system distribution lines to individual homes is the likely source of accumulated sediment. This accumulation is from disturbed sediment during the system flush. Because these lines cannot be flushed during the system flush, they should be done by each home owner by opening an outside faucet for 10 to 20 minutes, preferably bypassing any house filter.

Gas line conversion to reservoir building: Neither Ann Lerner or John Irving were in attendance to address the status of this item.

Treasurer’s report: Brian presented a :balance sheet, cash flow summary and a year to date I & E statement. The year to date cash flow, compared to the budget, appears to be on track.

A bill from C. Wiegand for work performed to re-construct the Creek bank after the May 22 flood erosion was discussed. The amount of $9,350 included the yearly brush hogging of the 14 acre site. The re-construction work resulted in a heightened embankment, larger stones and grass seeding to better prevent back side erosion if future flooding occurs. This May 2013 flooding far exceeding the water height that occurred from hurricane Irene in 2011. Les explained that none of this expense will be re-reimbursed from either State or Federal. Brian believes this is containable from our reserve fund but may result in some future risks.

Bill collector: Sandi Colbourne ended her service as one of our collector team members. We thank Sandi for volunteering her time for this task. We are pleased to accept Debby Lackey as Sandi’s replacement bill collector, with Dawn Makowenskyi continuing her team support.

Jericho town wide water system: Les provided copies of a letter he is sending to the Jericho Select Board, encouraging them to initiate a study for a “town” water system.

The motivation for this came from observing the conflict between geologist assessing the risks to the Jericho East wellhead from the proposed Dollar General store. The store will be at the extreme edge of the defined “well head protection area”. If the risk is sustained by the State assessment, it would mean that most of the Jericho Commercial Zone could not be developed.

Our system has two well sites and the Jericho-Underhill Water System has two well sites, all having additional wellhead protection areas that inhibit development. All of these restriction would be removed if the Town formed a water utility that absorbed these water systems and the Jericho Village water system (which abandoned their wells some years ago) and provided water from the Champlain Water System (lake) all of the public (and many private) wells could be abandoned along with the needed protection areas. Les hopes that a Town funded study would define if and how this might be done and the consequences to current water systems ownership.

Respectfully submitted;

Les Allen, Clerk, JFD#1