City Manager's Report 9/15/2008
BOP Sewer and WWTF
Discussion with BOP indicates that they plan to further pursue building their own WWTF because the information they have at the moment leads them to believe that that may be the most cost-efficient approach for them. They do not know this for sure, but feel obligated to pursue it because of what they feel may be a significant cost savings for them. At the same time, they recognize that this route may not lead to the savings they currently anticipate or that there may be other problems permitting it or otherwise which they don't see now. Accordingly, they want to leave the discussion open with the City on utilizing the City service as well.
NPDES Draft Permit Comments
Attached is a cover letter enclosing a copy of our newly issued NPDES permit by the USEPA for the operation of our WWTF along with a NHDES certification letter. This replaces our expired permit which was issued in September of 2000. This permit expired in 2005, and the EPA has been extending it until a new permit is issued.
We will be reviewing the new permit (1/4" of double-sided paper available in the CM's office) to determine if there is any reason to appeal any of its new provisions within the 30 days that we have for such an appeal. It is highly unlikely that we would determine that an appeal is necessary, but want to go through a review exercise anyway just to be sure we are not missing anything.
Notice of Past Violations
I have attached two Notices of Past Violations from NHDES. One is for the Watson Street Pump Station and one is for the WWTF on Shelby Street. These are a bit odd. The City has a number of back up generators at various facilities around town. The two largest ones are the Watson Street pump station and the WWTF itself. For quite a while we have been talking with a company about utilizing the generator at the WWTF as a way of getting the equivalent of money credit from PSNH by being willing to operate the generator at peak load times thereby offsetting power that PSNH would otherwise have to produce.
As part of this discussion with this company, we learned that the State permits certain large generators under air quality regulations. So we called NHDES and asked them why they had not required these generators to be permitted. They said they weren't sure but would check into. As it turned out only the Watson Street Pump Station and the WWTF generators were large enough to meet the DES requirement for permitting. It is not at all clear to me how DES, which does regular inspections of our WWTF and has since it was built in the late seventies, did not realize that the plant's generator needed to be permitted. We have paid their annual fee for the past five years for each plant and are now properly permitted. It is likely that we may be one of the very few municipal WWTF's in the state to have their backup generators properly permitted with NHDES.
Western Ave Paving
Western Ave was prepped last week, and now Pike is completing the paving work on Western Avenue. Some of these projects will be a little frustrating because it points up how bad the remaining sections of the road are. Unfortunately, that will have to wait for a future project.
Fuel Bids
The Gorham School District is again out to bid with the fuel needs of the City of Berlin (including schools) as well as the Town of Gorham and some of the smaller towns. Hopefully the results will be substantially better than the previous bid which they did in May of this year. Those bids were all rejected. The new bids are due in next Wednesday, September 24th at 2pm at the Gorham School District offices.
NHMA Action Bulletin
Attached is a copy of an Action Bulletin received from NHMA on the retirement issue. It shows the new projected rates for all of us which appear to well exceed the rate of inflation in every category. There is also discussion of how the new law has provisions in it which would have us all paying more for employees whose compensation payment on retirement exceeds 125% of the employees average base pay of the employees highest three years. One might ask how such a thing could occur, but apparently it does on a fairly regular basis which is undoubtedly part of the reason that the Retirement System is in such a mess. This will be discussed at the NHMA Policy Conference on September 12th, and the LGC Annual Conference on November 12th.
Fraser Biomass Gasification Boiler
Attached is a copy of a letter from Cascade Plant Manager Willis Blevins to the DES Air Resources Division for the air permit for the proposed wood chip plant at Cascade. I guess we can take this as evidence that that project continues to move forward.
State of New Hampshire Broadband Action Plan
Attached is a copy of the cover page and the Table of Contents of the new State Broadband Action Plan carried out by the Department of Resources and Economic Development and the Telecommunications Advisory Board. Because it is about a half an inch thick, it is not attached hereto. However, for anyone who would like to review it is available in the office.
DRA Public Forums of PILOT Agreements
As indicated in the attached flier, DRA is holding two public forums on clarifying the DRA's understanding of PILOT Agreements as defined in RSA 362-A:6. The one up here will be at the North Country Resource Center (Fish & Game) in Lancaster at 2pm on Tuesday October 7, 2008. RSVP's should be to utilities@rev.state.nh.us.
Riverfire
Riverfire is coming up fast (Saturday, October 4th) and Laura Viger is again leading the planning for it. Events include the Duck Race, Bingo Tent, Hayride, Kiddies Carnival, Pie Bake-Off, Timothy Paul Band, Berlin Has Talent Show, Food Vendors and of course the Light of the Boom Pier Fires on the River. Volunteers are still needed and should visit the City web-site or call 752-1272.
Notice from Time-Warner
Attached is a notice from Time-Warner indicating that they are dropping Channel WSBK from their channel line up effective October 10, 2008 in order to offer more HD programming.