It has been a while since I’ve written an update, and a lot has been going on at the water district. I will not go into detail for two reasons: I’m to upgrade the official web site (which, once cleaned up, is a better home for some of the big news), and I think the stories are not complete until we learn a few details, which will come very soon.
Here are some tidbits, bad news first:
Bills for 2022 went out, and the new rates raised some eyebrows, leading to some questions. The short story is that the district has to pay its bills of over $300k, and there are 335 ratepayers. While we have some hope of stabilizing expenses in the long term, in the short term you can do the math and see what we have to collect per person. Here is the budget and video recording of the rate hearing:
We got more positive coliform test results in November. A review of the system led to no new findings. Ho hum.
That’s the end of the bad news. There is much more good news!
The H2Olson engineers have been hard at work designing our water disinfection and filtration system. The work is impressive, and they submitted our application to the state on time. I’ve not read all 700+ pages yet, but they did extensive studies and bench tests and it looks like the system will solve our water quality problems, is designed to let us run at the absolute minimal allowable chlorine residual levels, and will not have any bad effects on the pipes or cause any significant levels of disinfection byproducts. We managed to secure a short-term loan to pay for this engineering work. We hope to quickly repay this loan with cheaper money…
We’ve applied to the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank to fund the project, as required. After one final effort to reach all the customers, the income survey is finally complete. We don’t know exactly what the loan terms will be, but their director’s recommendation to their board is highly favorable to us… stay tuned.
We are also making progress on getting federal funds from the infrastructure bill, and from the town. If secured, these can be used for projects that will improve system reliability and reduce operating expenses (such as replacing that one pipeline we all know to be responsible for half the leaks).
The board believed we needed to hire additional expertise to help us navigate these engineering projects, to handle design of operating procedures and small system improvements, to operate the new system, to train others to operate it, to do tasks the former Operations Manager used to do, etc. We wanted someone with water system management experience, a Level 1 treatment license, an engineering stamp, and willingness to work part time on Prudence Island at a price we can afford on our budget… and miraculously Robin and Chris managed to find one.
For the first time in a while, we are not behind on required paperwork (financials and annual reports).
So in short, we have new plans, new money, and new people. Yes, the rates seem a bit high, but it is not business as usual… we are going to solve our problems, and by 2023 we should have good water!
There will be a regular meeting November 20 at 1pm. This will be preceded by a rate hearing at 11am. Hope to see you there!
Lots has happened since the October board meeting:
We continue to work on getting funding in the infrastructure bill. See Senator Reed’s post here.
We had good meetings with the engineers at H2Olson, who have been on island several times working out the disinfection and filtration system that will solve our water problems. They confirmed that our system can be permitted and installed in 2022, providing clean safe water in time for summer 2023.
We tested positive for coliform this month. This is unfortunate, but not surprising. Seems like we’ll be under boil water until the disinfection system is on line.
The board meeting Saturday (October 16) was a big one! After decades of suffering through brown/orange water that is not safe to drink, the first steps are finally being taken to correct the problem.
By unanimous vote, the board selected H2Olson as the engineering firm that will design our disinfection and filtration system, and apply to RIDOH for permission to build it. This treatment system will ensure that our water is germ-free and will get rid of the nuisance iron. The board also voted to apply for loans to fund this engineering work and for construction. (We hope that we will not need these loans, as the PIWD is on the “the list” and may receive funds from an infrastructure bill.)
Another huge step was the adoption of proposed rates for FY2022. This is probably when you’ll realize that you elected the wrong guy to the board, because it’s a significant increase. But I will tell you that I have looked at every payment the district has made over the last 3 years, and they’ve had to borrow tens of thousands of dollars to operate despite cutting costs to the absolute minimum. It was not a sustainable situation, and an increase is overdue. I hope to see you at the rate hearing at 11am on November 20, 2021 at Hope Brown Center, where the rate proposal will be discussed with the public. As usual, I hope to see you afterward at the regular meeting at 1pm.
TL;DR: If there’s stuff in your water that you don’t want, filter it out.
After being under a boil water advisory for a couple years (and suffering brown water in summer in the northern part of the island for a couple decades), the Prudence Island Water District’s customers are owed some sort of plan to fix the water quality problems. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone would simply tell us what to do?
The consent order lays out a set of concrete steps with deadlines:
1. Apply For Project Funding by October 31, 2021
PIWD Must Apply for Funding
There are a couple of points to make about the funding application with the state. First, the project is at the absolute top of the priority list for the State Revolving Fund. If we apply properly, we’ll get funding. Second, if year-round residents would please complete the income survey, we might get a higher percentage of grants versus loans. Third, one of the biggest hurdles is that we must provide our financial statements as part of the loan application. This is a story for another post, but ours are not done. Nevertheless, I have been told by the bank that estimated financials are better than no financials, and have started to build detailed estimates.
2. PIWD Must Get Engineering Plans Approved by December 31, 2021
PIWD Must Apply for Approval
For details of the engineering studies and approvals required, please see the consent order. For a sense of what system modifications are likely, see the engineering section below.
3. After Approval, Funding, and Environmental Studies Are Complete, Build the System
PIWD Must Build the System
When Will It Be Done? How Much Will It Cost?
If all goes well, we would hit the funding and planning milestones by the end of 2021. Environmental studies would need to be completed in 2022, followed by construction. Compliance would be achieved by the end of 2022, but the Indian Spring filtration equipment wouldn’t see much use until the busy season of 2023. Or, it could take much longer, if we drag our feet or other problems occur.
The equipment itself, a chlorinator at Army Camp and a greensand filtration setup at Indian Spring, is not overwhelmingly expensive.
Cost Of Filtration Equipment
The real expense may come in engineering services, site modifications, and housing the equipment. While new, the Indian Spring well building does not have a concrete floor, and may not be able to support the equipment. The site electrical plan is currently a mess. Adding a concrete building, control equipment, backwash pits, training, profit, contingency, etc., the total suggested by the engineering firm could run as high as $600,995. (Reference document not provided, it is a draft and therefore not a public record yet.)
Remember that the money we get from the infrastructure bank is likely to have a grant or “principal forgiveness” component, so district customers may not have to pay the entire amount. Taking all this into consideration, the cost to customers should still be less than $70/customer/year until the loan is paid off in 20 years. (Sadly the rates must rise more than this because the district is currently bleeding cash and has been borrowing to meet its operating expenses in violation of the charter, but more on this some other day.)
For Army Camp, which is free of iron, this means simply chlorinating. You could pretty much just switch on the existing equipment.
Just Turn It On?
While we could turn on the existing equipment, we really should do a little bit more. Part of the requirement is adding the chlorine to the water, but the process also must be monitored. Army Camp has a lot of underutilized monitoring equipment already installed, such as a PLC panel and an alarm system. It just isn’t being used; isn’t plugged in! (And there’s nowhere to plug it in, no phone jacks in the woods…)
Shouldn’t We Plug That In?
The plan for Indian Spring is a bit more involved. You could just switch on the existing chlorinator there also, but when chlorine is added to Indian Spring water, the iron and manganese are oxidized and the water turns brown.
Drink the one on the right…
This turns out to be a good thing, not a problem, because the oxidized iron is much easier to filter out. The suggested filter media is called “greensand”, which captures the iron and manganese oxides, which are then discarded in a “backwash” cycle.
Having been disinfected and filtered, the water is ready for distribution. Filter backwash must be sent to a pit for dewatering.
In addition to the filtration equipment, Indian Spring will need monitoring to ensure proper chlorine residual, and the site electrical must be reworked to allow the filter to stop the pumps during the backwash cycle. (Again, this is an opportunity to fix a loose end project, the current power switches are in a rotting green shed that should have been torn down.)
The Rhode Island Department of Health will step aside, and let the federal EPA come for us.
I’ll tell you this right now, without hesitation. Prudence Island Water District cannot stay where they are, it has to move forward. Here’s the bottom line… if the district does not move forward in the next few months, between now and the end of the year, it is a virtual certainty that USEPA is going to step in, and when they step in, it’s not going to be pleasant. … I’m telling you this as your consultant. If you guys don’t have your plan in place by the end of the year, on January 2nd the EPA is coming in. This I can guarantee.
Robert Ferrari, P.E., Northeast Water Solutions Inc.
This is certainly plausible. Communications from the EPA indicate that we’re on their radar.
EPA has stayed enforcement action, for now…
Conclusion
We had a pretty good plan drawn up a decade ago, we just haven’t executed it. With the current pressure from RIDOH and the U.S. EPA, now’s the time to act. Getting this project done will require focus and undivided attention from the PIWD board.
The bad news is that the solution to Prudence Island’s water quality problems isn’t going to be cheap. The good news, however, is that once the filtration system is built, we will have the safe, clean, pleasant water, the best the island has ever had.
TL;DR: We’re better off filtering our current water sources than trying to find new ones, at least in the short term.
The primary responsibility of the Prudence Island Water District is to ensure an adequate supply of water for the district’s customers. This obviously begins with the water sources, which are currently deep rock wells. Our current wells have their challenges, namely low production of Army Camp in dry summers, high iron and manganese content at Indian Springs, and coliform contamination coming from somewhere, quite possibly the wells. We might also need more water in the future, if the population increases, more people stay year round, or consumption trends otherwise increase.
With the current water quality problems, it’s tempting to dream of drilling new holes, abandoning the old sources, and having wonderful water. And, in the past, I have written and talked about the need to develop new water sources in those terms. More recently, however, I’ve joined the PIWD’s board of directors, and have to think much more carefully about the costs, benefits, and risks of any project. So, with access to our archives of past research, I’ve studied the situation more carefully, and believe that the search for new water is going to be very expensive and unlikely to get us away from the current wells any time soon. I also believe that the current wells will meet current demand for a few more years. Considering that we’re under state mandate to improve water relatively quickly, we don’t have the time or money to do a lot of searching for new water right now. Dream crushed.
This post is rather long, but that’s because there’s a lot to consider. Feel free to hop around.
The most important characteristic of a good water source is that it can produce a sufficient quantity of water. We have technology that can create good water from arbitrarily bad water (plus money and electricity, of course), but we can’t create water out of nothing. On a peak day, usually a summer weekend, Prudence Island Water District uses about 50,000 gallons of water, an average of 35 gallons per minute. We have a 100,000 gallon storage tank, “Big Blue”, to smooth out the demand over the course of the day, so the supply may produce at a constant rate. It is important that sufficient supply be available in all years, including dry ones, and that the water source be able to handle emergencies (bad weather, power failure, equipment failure, etc.
It is of course much easier to start with good water, so that’s an important characteristic. A good well can directly produce water that is fit for drinking, by virtue of being located deep under soil that is free of toxins, in bedrock free of natural deposits of metals and radioisotopes. The natural percolation processes filter the surface water, making it suitable for consumption without any further treatment.
The location of the water source is very important. The land by the water source must be available for use. It must be practical to pipe the water from the source to distribution. There must be access to electricity for powering pumps, and access for vehicles to service any equipment. Finally, water sources require surrounding lands that are protected from contamination by human activity, and must be situated a sufficient distance from salt water to prevent intrusion.
Prudence Island Water District currently uses two deep rock well fields as water sources.
Army Camp Well
The first, Army Camp well, is located near the highest point on the island. It is able to produce a bit over 10 gallons per minute, except in prolonged dry periods, where it may be reduced to 2-3 gallons per minute.
The water quality is excellent, with few dissolved minerals, no tastes or odors, and neutral pH.
Water Quality of Existing Wells. The only concern is iron and manganese at Indian Spring.
It does, however, occasionally test positive for coliform.
Well Coliform Samples (pre 2012)Wells were positive for coliform as recently as 2020
Army Camp well is located on land leased from the Prudence Conservancy, and has piping, electricity, and vehicle access along the old Army Camp Road. There is a large wellhead protection radius. As such, it meets all of the important characteristics of a water source except one – in a dry summer it produces about 3 gallons per minute, which is less than a tenth of peak day water demand of 35 gallons per minute.
Army Camp production can fall to 3 gallons per minute by the end of a dry summer
The second well field is Indian Spring. Indian Spring is located off Homestead Avenue, down near Mill Creek. There are two wells, Indian Spring #1, and Indian Spring #4, which are located close together, about 50 feet apart. Interestingly, Indian Spring #4 produces 35-40 gallons per minute continuously in any year, while Indian Spring #1 produces only 10-20 gallons per minute. The Indian Spring well field is in an ideal location; it is on a decent plot of land owned outright by the water district, has electricity, and is in close proximity to the distribution system. There is a sizeable wellhead protection radius. As there are two wells, there is some tolerance for failure.
Indian Spring Pumphouses
The only problem with Indian Spring is the water quality; it is very high in iron and manganese particularly in late summer when withdrawing water from fracture storage, and it occasionally tests positive for coliform (see above).
One reason to seek new water sources is if the demand increases. In the past, estimates indicated that there could be significant increases in water demand from large parcels getting zoned for many new residences, and increased demand per customer.
To some extent, this can no longer happen. Several of the large parcels (Ballard Unit, and Chase Farm, for example) were locked up as conservation land, significantly reducing the potential for new connections. Any increase in water consumption per customer was offset by efficiency and elimination of leaks. Before the intensive campaign to eliminate leaks, the PIUC saw demand of 10-11 million gallons per year, which it produced mainly from Indian Springs. Recently, demand has only been 7-8 million gallons per year, and we actually have increased the productive capacity of the wells by improving the pumps. It is quite possible that demand will slowly increase, but we seem to have a couple million gallons per year of headroom in the existing system. This means that there is not an urgent short-term need to increase water supply. If long term trends are upwards, we’ll have several years’ notice before the situation is serious.
Another reason to improve the water sources is for resiliency. If Indian Spring #4 well were to fail for a prolonged period of time in a dry summer, the water supply would not be adequate. This may not require drastic measures to fix; we could enhance Indian Spring #1, or drill another well at Indian Spring as a better standby.
A final reason why the water sources should be improved would be if we could find a sufficient supply of water free of the iron and manganese plaguing Indian Spring. Such a source would have to produce at least as much water as Indian Spring if we expect to replace it.
Remembering the characteristics of a good water source, we can use the process of elimination to find the best location for a water source. We must have access to drill on the land, a route to pipe water to distribution, electricity, and road access. The source should not be sited near septic systems, dump sites, or any other potential contamination sources. And, of course, there’s the hard part: there has to be water under the land if a drilled well is to be successful, and we have limited information about what’s deep under ground. More challenging still, that water would have to be better than Indian Spring water, so we’d like to avoid iron-rich rock formations.
Let us consider each factor in turn. First, where the distribution system is:
High-Level View of Water System Location
The distribution system is quite sprawling, and is generally located near road and power infrastructure. The bad news is that it is located near human activities that may contaminate the water supply, near private wells that may be impacted, and much is close to shore. Notably, the network does not extend to the northern, southern, or western parts of the island, so piping needs from those areas would be considerable.
The next consideration is wellhead protection. Legally, minimal protection is a 200 foot radius of controlled land, but water may come from 1,500 feet away, so bigger is better. The map below shows the island with 1,500′ circles drawn in a few example locations.
Wellhead Protection Radius Examples
A significant concern is whether or not the Prudence Island Water District is legally allowed to drill in any given location. PIWD may purchase property, and has eminent domain over everyone except the state and federal government. This means that green areas on the map below (and also the area in yellow, since its purchase by the state) are off limits (unless DEM has a change of heart, which seems unlikely).
Inaccessible Property in Green (yellow area is also off-limits since map was drawn)
Perhaps the most difficult part is knowing where the water is… which comes down to a combination of where underground fractures can be found, and which fractures are water-bearing.
The first report worth mentioning is by Dr. Daniel Urish, whose name will come up many times in any discussion of historical attempts to locate water on Prudence. In 1989, he published his Preliminary Evaluation of Groundwater Availability on Prudence Island. While it doesn’t make any specific suggestions as to where wells should be drilled, it does provide a number of useful insights. First, he breaks the island into numbered watersheds, which are referenced in later studies.
Prudence Island Watersheds, as numbered by Dr. Urish
The next significant contribution made by the report is an estimate of the amount of water that should be available on Prudence, derived from rainfall, runoff, and so on. The good news? Prudence aquifers collectively are recharged with 100x more water than the PIWD needs.
Prudence Island should have plenty of water, based on rainfall
Finally, the report contributes information about existing wells. The only good producers were near Indian Springs, and at the Naval Reservation (where the NBNERR buildings are today). Many wells near the PIWD distribution system have high iron content.
The D.L. Maher Company, it turns out, drilled the Indian Spring wells, which are shown as red dots on the map. And, interestingly, they’re the most productive wells ever drilled on Prudence, and they’re located in one of the promising green spots, which gives the map a bit of credibility.
One might also wonder if any wells of sufficient capacity would be free of iron. Dr. Urish seems not to think so.
Dr. Urish, 2013
A number of other reports were commissioned to help learn more about the underground geology of the island. These are less than helpful; they do not make any specific suggestions about well locations, only note that fractures tend to be north-north-east striking, shallow dipping in the west, steep in the east.
Evaluation of Ground Water Level and Pumping Trends. Dr. Urish, 2004. This report discusses the sustainability of the Indian Spring well field. Recent data collected in response to this report and the GZA (above) report indicate no concern with the watershed.
For a variety of reasons, it was suggested that the PIWD conduct borehole inspections of the existing wells. This allowed assessment of condition, but also allowed the fractures to be seen, to confirm the trends seen in the GRI report above.
In the previous section, you can see that there is not a lot of scientific certainty as to where good water would be found. This necessitates a “trial and error” method, involving the drilling of test wells where water may be found.
In 2012-2015, at the suggestion of the Facilities Improvement Plan, the PIWD began in earnest to identify and develop an additional water source. The overall timeline can be read here, but in this post we will simply look at the most important events and pictures.
1. The first idea was to go after a site on the Heritage unit that is coincident with one of D. L. Maher’s green spots on the fracture trace map. Result? No access, because it is on DEM land. The location is also inconvenient because it is not near electricity or pipes.
Heritage Unit Proposed Well Location
2. The second idea was to consider private properties that were not on Maher’s green spots, but were near several photo-lineament fractures. One was on Bacon’s property, the other on Little’s property (which has since been sold to DEM). Result: No property access. (Again, would have been a logistical challenge anyway.)
There are two main problems with this. First, 10 gallons per minute isn’t amazingly useful when you need over 30. Second, and more important, it isn’t possible to tell if “permeable water bearing fractures can be intersected at depth”. In less words “we don’t know if there’s water”. Or, in more words:
Good Luck?
Despite the technical limitations the search commenced. Not all technologies were suitable due to nearby interference, but it was decided to lay Multi-electrode Electrical Resistivity lines to take ground measurements. This was the specified layout:
Where The MER Lines Were Supposed To Go
Sadly, the lines could not be placed in this configuration due to property owner objections. Instead, the lines were placed this way:
Actual Line Placement and Identified Target
After the MER study was conducted, the engineers basically said the results were not promising.
Not Promising.
4. However, the PIWD continued to pursue the new water project by testing wells in the area of the Big Blue Tank.
Currently, the search for water is still focused on the area of the Big Blue storage tank. As mentioned, this would be an excellent place to find water for logistical reasons, because it is right next to the tank, roads, and electricity. Also as mentioned above, the engineering firm suggested 5 test well locations in the vicinity. Two were on conservancy land and were tried (marked A and C on the map above). Additionally, an old well on Bains’ property was tested. None produced anything near adequate water flow. This leaves 3 undrilled target locations, one of which is in the public record as subject of ongoing investigation (marked B above), and two which will remain a secret.
The current drilling target, “B”, is on the Ballard property. This property is owned by Rhode Island DEM. (Fascinating story: DEM did approve it as a suitable drilling location, but then we learned that this is not the same as having permission to drill there.) They will not let us drill there due to conservation easements, and we do not have eminent domain over the state, but we continue to ask for permission anyway. There have been numerous letters to and meetings with the state, and no results. At this point the only option is to get the legislature or attorney general to intervene.
As a board member, I have to ask how important it is to keep pursuing this. The problems with it are:
The DEM fight costs time and money, and we’ll probably lose. They are under no obligation to allow us to drill on their land, run pipes across, cut a vehicle road, run a power line in, etc.
There is a good chance that the well, if drilled, would not produce sufficient water of good quality. In order to meet demand in a dry summer, we need to hit a fracture network containing a few million gallons of stored water. A network of that size would run many hundreds of feet from the well, so if it existed, we’d probably have hit it with one of the other nearby test wells. If a best case scenario on the well is that it performs like Army Camp to the south, that would be nice, but would not get us away from Indian Spring. If it produced lots of water, there is still the chance that it would suffer from iron and manganese like Indian Spring to the north.
If the well does produce, we will need to develop the well, will need land for a pump house, will have to add pipes, and otherwise develop the resource. That is a significant expense that comes at a bad time, as we currently have to tackle disinfection and filtration according to the latest consent order with the state.
And so, I find myself leaning toward putting the project on hold. (Or maybe it basically is.) It is not worth any money, or much time, at this point.
With the challenges (and outright luck) involved in successfully drilling a well, one might ask whether there are other water source options. The short answer is that there are, but they would be prohibitively expensive at this time.
Something like this?
One option is to pipe water in that was purchased from somewhere else. This would require an agreement with a nearby mainland water company, a pipe across the bay, pipes across the shoreline on the Prudence and mainland sides, environmental studies and permits, etc. There would be ongoing water purchase costs after the pipe was constructed. Technically, it’s doable; we get our electricity from the mainland this way, and there are other places in the world where similar things have been done. But, as of now, I have not found any estimates of what this plan would cost. It could be a million dollars a mile for a bit over a mile, but that’s wild speculation of course. It’s unlikely to be cheap and easy.
Or something like that?
Another option is to take water from the bay. This water would need to be desalinated using a process called Sea Water Reverse Osmosis (SWRO). Here, we’ve been advised that we would make wells near the shore (so that natural filtration occurs prior to RO), build a SWRO, and then construct an “outfall” where the salty brine is returned to the bay. Technically, yes, this can be done, as it has been on Block Island and elsewhere. Here, we also have cost estimates from the 2012 Facilities Improvement Plan. To get a cost estimate, add up the numbers from the following tables, and then add in extra for land acquisition, which was omitted, and you get a total cost of $2 million, in round numbers.
Snput Well CostReverse Osmosis System CostBrackish Water Discharge Cost
Wells are the cheapest way to get adequate water supply for the Prudence Island Water District, even if the well water must be disinfected and filtered to meet quality requirements. Drilling replacement wells has been difficult because there are no known locations with sufficient supply near the electrical and piping infrastructure. Geological studies haven’t given strong answers on where to drill. Drilling “trial and error” test wells to find new sources is expensive, and has led to nothing but dry holes. Even if a new well is found that produces sufficient capacity, it may suffer from the same iron and manganese issues common throughout the “Rhode Island formation”.
For these reasons, the time and expense of finding new water is prohibitive in the short term. Treating existing water must be the current priority, and we can revisit the new water source project when funds are available, perhaps in 2029 when our largest loan has been paid off.
The official results are in, and I was sworn in as a new board member on July 17. Thanks to all who voted for me, despite the other fine choices on the ballot. (To summarize the ballot for those who missed it, it could best have been paraphrased as “Please choose 3 of the following 2 candidates”…)
Before my first board meeting on July 17, I had carefully written out my plans and vision, sort of an “acceptance speech” if you will. This became obsolete alarmingly quickly once I realized the severity of financial and accounting problems and received the next round of communications from the state regarding a revised consent order.
Despite the financial challenge, and some additional requirements the state wants to add, I still hope we’ll see a plan to address water quality plans developed somewhat quickly. In the mean time, I’m pleased that the board passed several motions with the goal of improving public outreach… we’ll certainly need your support for our plans.
Thanks again. Please feel free to ask questions in the comments, talk to me on the ferry, drop by, etc.
Why are you running for the water board? The water on Prudence Island isn’t very good. It’s brown with iron, and the state department of health is on our backs about fecal coliform bacteria contaminating the water every now and then. I’ve watched the current board over the last three years, and I think they could use some help. They work amazingly hard sometimes, but they don’t have a vision, they aren’t always doing the right thing, and they end up getting in their own way and going in circles. I’m willing to try to help straighten this out by pushing things in a consistent direction.
What is your background? I’m a computer engineer by trade, and I still work a full time job for a large software company. My wife and I have two gradeschool kids.
How long have you been on Prudence Island? My wife has been taking vacations out here since she was a child. 15 years ago we started renting down here for a week in the summer, and then in 2013 we finally bought a place on Pier Rd.
Do you have any relevant qualifications or experience? No, I don’t have any qualifications. Other than attending the board meetings and reviewing the public records, I don’t have any experience either. That said, I’m willing to do the research, ask the experts, and learn whatever else it takes to get things pointed in the right direction. I’ve applied to take the exams for water systems operation, but that’s a long road. I think I can help out immediately just by killing of some of the bad, self-defeating ideas that have taken root with the current board. Anyway, if someone qualified for the job runs for election, you should strongly consider voting for him or her.
What do you think about the other board members? I respect the current members for their strengths; they do a lot of hard work as volunteers. Ann-Marie is helping get the finance systems in order and get the books done; those kind of skills fetch a lot of money in the private sector so we’re very lucky to have her volunteering to do it. Robin does a lot just to “keep the train on the tracks”… without her the tax bills wouldn’t go out, the income survey wouldn’t have gone out, and that only covers part of her work in the month of April. Helio has useful connections in the state government. Chris has dutifully kept the meeting minutes and handled employee performance reviews. The problem is that none of them know what to do about the water situation, so they’ve worked incredibly hard on things like the “Cross Connection Control Plan” that hurt a lot of feelings and left us right back where we started.
What are your priorities for the district? The first priority is to come up with a cost-effective plan to clean up the drinking water. Instead of speculating about it and writing hostile letters to the state, we’ll get real proposals and then try to find funding if that makes sense. We’ve got to take a look at the plat map one more time to see if there’s a spot for a new well, or whether we have to clean up the Indian Spring 4 water, or if it would be easier to desalinate bay water. Looking over the distribution map and the books is also a high priority at first. A lot of other fiddly things like the virus on the web site, the curb stop campaign, etc., are important but they’re just not urgent and they’re going to have to wait until after we can drink the water without boiling it.
Will you promise that water prices won’t increase? I wish I could promise that, but I can’t. What I can promise is to spend your money wisely. I don’t think there’s a lot of wasted money in the PIWD right now, but I’ll take a hard look at the books if I get elected. I know of a project idea on the agenda right now that would cost money but won’t solve anything; and I’ll make sure that gets killed off. Rates have gone up 50% in the last 8 years, even though the water company is basically doing the same thing it was then, so we’ll review the operations to make sure they stay lean, make sure we’re taking advantage of the current rock-bottom interest rates, and so on.
How much time do you expect to spend working with the PIWD? I think it’s going to take a lot of work at first to figure out what the plan for the district will be over the next 3-10 years, and to handle a few other things that have been neglected. Hopefully after that things will slow down to the point where I’m only putting in a day or two a month.
Do you have anything else you’d like to add? Please get involved if you can. Vote. Come to the meetings. Talk to a board member. If you hear a rumor, make sure it is true, and share it with the people you know. Thank you!
Note: This is my (Chuck’s) written commentary on the board meeting. If you just want to watch a replay without reading my commentary, go to the video page.
Thanks to all who attended March’s board meeting. After many months with no public participation, it was nice to see a crowd, and it’ll be interesting to see if people continue to attend. The board noticed and appreciated the public interest (though I suspect the Facebook posts encouraging attendance, rather than the 6pm Thursday time, were the reason).
Perhaps I shouldn’t assume that everyone knows the board. They are:
Robin Weber: Moderator. Appears in the video as “Fire Tablet”.
Chris Brown: Secretary. Appears in the video as “Chris”. Term expires this year.
Ann-Marie Lockwood: Treasurer. Appears in the video as “PI Water District”. Term expires this year.
Phil Brooks: Board member. Appears in the video as “Phil”. Term expires this year, not eligible for reelection.
Helio Melo: Board member. Appears in the video as “melo114”.
Agenda Item 1: Public meetings start with a call to order, and this was no exception. It is up to the moderator to decide if any public comments or discussion are allowed at the meeting, and as is typically the case for PIWD meetings, they were not allowed. (It does occur to me that we could host our own Zoom meeting after the official meeting if we want to.) The moderator also said that the PIWD “did not have the technology” to record the meeting. But the public is allowed to record the meeting in a non-disruptive way, and we did.
Agenda Item 2: Minutes of the prior (February) meeting were accepted. They’ll end up on the state’s web site in a week or so. (This has the unfortunate consequence that you couldn’t have read the February minutes, not even a draft, prior to the March meeting.)
Agenda Item 3&4:Treasurer’s report, and accounts payable. We don’t have a treasurer’s report this month. Accounts payable are $8,438.95. If you want to know how much PIWD actually spends on backhoes, electricity, and so on, this is the place to look right now. To put that number into context, $8k/month is about $100k/year, out of a district budget of about $260k year.
Agenda Item 5:Audit. We don’t have a 2019 audit yet, and it’s almost time for the 2020 audit. This does make it a bit difficult to do an analysis of the finances and the budget of the district.
Agenda Item 6-7: Apparently skipped
Agenda Item 8:2021 is an election year. There was a good discussion of the mechanics of the election, but exact details on how to run and how to vote will be a bit longer in coming. I’m personally a bit more interested in who’d be willing to run for the board seats, especially Phil’s, since he is not running for reelection. At the February meeting, I did say I’d be willing to run (though if someone with water experience or other useful knowledge wants to run, I would defer). (If you see me at the ferry dock trying to collect 8 signatures, that’s why.)
This web site is keen to host posts by anyone, especially anyone who wants to inform the public of their intent to run, and their positions on important issues… just fill in the contact form.
Agenda Item 10:Staffing. The backstory here is that Bob Marshall resigned his role as “operations manager” last year. He was part time and relatively expensive, but did some of the operations, management, planning, grant-writing, etc. The ongoing discussion is about what skills the district needs to replace, and what the district can actually afford. For context, the district budget is $266k/year, only $93k/year is for salaries, and this money has to cover the front office (Judy, who answers communications, billing, collections, etc.), and the water system and operations (Will and Alton). The challenges are:
It doesn’t appear that there is money for a full-time engineer with a vision
It might be hard to get someone qualified who is interested in part-time work on Prudence
It has also been difficult to pin down a job description.
Thus the issue has been stalled on Helio’s task list for the last few months. If you know of anyone who might be able and interested, please forward to the PIWD board.
Agenda Item 12:System status. Some curb stops were installed. There were no positive coliform test results this month. There’s some discussion of the processes (chlorination) to follow when doing leak repairs to make sure that the system is not contaminated during work, and whether training is needed. The final topic was the condition of a homeowner’s property; apparently PIWD placed a rock upside-down during the course of work.
Agenda Item 13:Capital projects. This discussion was mostly rolled into item 14. Of primary interest is a new water well. There is a lot of background material here as to why the district needs a new water well, and what attempts have been made to secure one, but that story deserves its own article.
Agenda Item 14:Corrective Action Plan, RIDOH consent order, etc. This is the main discussion of interest to the public, as it concerns the status of the cross-connection control plan, the directives from DOH, and the corrective actions to be taken to move forward. While the outcome is relatively easy to summarize (they’re going get the help of Bob Ferrari at NWSI to develop the facilities improvement plan, and to try to schedule another meeting with RIDOH and whoever else they can get), the discussion itself is much more difficult to summarize succinctly. I believe they did make and pass a motion to engage with NWSI, as there was a motion and 4 yes votes, but it devolved into discussion before we heard a yes/no vote from Helio.
Here are some time points in the video:
00:00 Recap discussions with Senator Reed, Senator Seveney, and RCAP
02:11 Recap discussions with Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank
03:10 Discussion of the price tag, circa 2006; clearly we need an updated plan
04:51 RIIB could possibly fund twice, once for engineering plans, and again for construction, but they’d want some assurance that the plan would get built
06:30 Recap discussion with Senator Whitehouse’s office about other funding sources
08:50 Helio says we should sit down with Seveney, Donovan, and RIDOH to figure out what we need to do.
10:52 Recap of discussions with DEM and Ballard property easement, which prevents water extraction.
14:18 Recap of discussions with Bob Ferrari, of Northeast Water Solutions Inc. Bob is somewhat familiar with the Prudence Island system, as he has done a number of the Level 2 Assessments to diagnose problems with the system. RIDOH also has a contract with him to provide engineering services to small systems such as PIWD.
15:20, 16:35, 17:18 Bob Ferrari has suggested making a new facilities improvement plan, which would include new water sources and fixing aging infrastructure, not just treatment options.
18:18 What does the board think of engaging with Bob, and who would do it?
22:18 If the contract with RIDOH would cover the facilities improvement plan at no charge to the district, are we on board?
22:22 Ann-Marie – Absolutely
23:20 Chris – Encouraged
25:50 Robin – I don’t see a down side
27:40 Robin makes a motion that, pending confirmation from DOH that facilities improvement is covered in the contract, that we’d welcome that process.
28:08 Ann-Marie seconds the motion
28:13 Chris Brown says “yeah”
28:20 Phil says we might as well
28:33 Helio is asked what he thinks.
29:18 Helio still wants a meeting with RIDOH
30:28 Phil says what he thinks will be needed (this is worth listening to)
32:00 Discussion of getting the state to agree to a long timeline for the facilities improvement plan
35:20 More comments from Helio about asking DOH what they’ll want
38:40 Robin reminds everyone that in order for DOH to say what they want, they’ll need to see the evaluation of the system and the improvement plan.
38:45 Discussion of setting up a meeting with the senators, RIDOH, Bob Ferrari, and whoever else
40:45 It is pointed out that at most two PIWD board members may attend, or the meeting must be public
It is decided that Robin and Helio will attend any meeting
Agenda Item 15:Executive session. This added to the agenda to discuss Will’s performance, but was tabled as there are no updates.
PIWater.org 