Kittery council, water district discuss supply strain and Navy project

[0:25] Judy Spiller, Town Council: Good afternoon. This is a joint workshop with the Kittery Town Council and the Kittery Water District Board of Trustees and the Superintendent. We'll start by just going around and introducing ourselves and we'll start with you, Megan. [0:41] Celeste Bragg, Town Council: I'm Megan Greenwood and I'm on Town Council. [0:44] Scott Mason, Town Council: Scott Mason, Town Council. [0:46] Celeste Bragg, Town Council: Celeste Bragg, Town Council. [0:48] Chris Andrews, Water District Trustee: Chris Andrews, Water District, yeah, Water District Trustees. [0:52] Carla Robinson, Water District Trustee: Carla Robinson, Water District Trustee. Water [0:56] Mike Melvin, Water District Trustee: District Mike Melvin trustee give me one district Matthew Berube district [1:00] Judy Spiller, Town Council: superintendent and Judy Spiller Town Council in the last couple of months we've had a lot of public discussion about water the last couple of days we've had a lot of water but it's a drop in the bucket in addressing the problem that we're facing. So this is a good time for the Water District to come and give us a sense of what's happening. We have two counselors who are not here this evening. Counselor Stevens should be joining on Zoom, and Counselor Clark had an accident today, and he's not able to be with us. So I'm going to turn the program right over to our superintendent, Judy. The town manager is not here because she's, you know, indisposed I think it's [2:02] Superintendent (Water District Superintendent): so well thanks for having us today what I'm gonna do is kind of just go quickly through this powerpoint I'll probably go through it pretty quick unless you have some specific questions and then you know that'll leave time I think you guys were I've been getting some emails about questions and I'm sure that's where your focus wants to be so I'll try to get through this pretty quick and then you know hopefully leave time for your questions and see if we can't answer them for you so we're here to talk about our water supply and capacity discussion some quick background some of you might already know this but I'm new to this community so I didn't know that you know Kittery Water District dates back to 1901 and it was specifically set up to start feeding water to the shipyard at one point when it was originally designed. We were set up in 1907 to serve Kittery, Point, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, portions of Elliott, and portions of York. We're part of the Southern Maine Regional Water Council Committee. It's a voluntary nonprofit. We meet quarterly and annually. It's about six to eight communities. If I can't remember the exact number, but it's a few of us down here in the southeast region of Maine. We meet just talking and discussing problems and issues that we are all facing, and we are all facing the water shortage problem. We currently serve about 6,300 connections, our largest being in the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. We have four water sources, which are basically four surface water ponds that we have. It's in about 2,500 of protected land up in York, and it's part of a 12,000 plus acres of protected land. So we'll jump into our sources of supply. We have four large surface water supplies. There's Bolter Pond, Folly Pond, Middle Pond, and Bell Marsh Reservoir. They all feed by gravity towards our plant. Bell Marsh can flow into Bolter Pond and become a way to recharge Bolter Pond. Folly Pond can flow by gravity to feed Middle Pond and kind of try to help to recharge that. And Bolter and Middle directly feed into the treatment plant, so that is the source waters that come into our treatment plant. This is just a quick schematic just showing you some elevations so you can see that they can cascade by gravity down towards the treatment plant elevation. Some quick little background about each supply. Bell Marsh was the most recently built. It was constructed in 1987. It has 1200 million gallons or 1.2 billion gallons stored in it. Again, it flows to both the pond. The recharge that it receives is from rain and snow. Out. We do have dam inspections yearly, and it's part of our, we do have an emergency action plan for this dam in case there's any issues with it. This is some pictures just to give you an idea. I'll be going out on Wednesday with the town manager to do some tours, so just want to let you know she'll be out there seeing some of these low levels with me on Wednesday. We're going to take her out to see the treatment plant in a few of our source water ponds and anything else she would like to see this is kind of showing high supply when it's full looking back towards the dam from the dike it's hard to get perspective until you know where you are bolt upon this is the pond that's directly adjacent to the treatment plant again it's a direct feed into the plant it has 400 million gallons of storage this was a one of the I think it was the second or third one Built due to the treatment plant being right in its proximity. I was constructed in 1951, and I believe our plant was built in 59. So this was starting to serve that plant as well. Again, this is all our ponds. As you'll continue to see, we do have an emergency action plan for this one, and this one is only recharged by rain or snow as well, or Belmarsh Reservoir if it's able to flow down to it. This is some examples of the headworks, just trying to show you that this is when it's really low, you can kind of start seeing down that corridor, it starts to grow grass. It's basically showing a lot of, right now we relieved a beaver dam, so that's why you're seeing a large rush of water on the right hand side. This is what it's supposed to look like when it's full, so you can kind of see how empty it can really get. Again, this is just showing the spillway. This actually was spilling over in 19, I think it just spilled over again after two years earlier this year, and now it's already about down below it. Folly Pond is a 273 million gallon storage capacity is constructed in 1942. It impounds Cyto Hill Creek. We've done some rehab on this one, and it's kind of due for some more rehab, so that's kind of one of our projects we'll be looking into to kind of do a little rehab to some of the cement up here to make sure that it's working well. This one can be opened up to recharge Middle Pond, and again it's part of a creek, but these creeks are not like rivers, so they don't provide much recharge, and it's recharged by rain and snow. This is how low Folly Pond can get. This is an actual pond, but this is actually where it goes to when it gets real low. This is kind of still low, just showing you how much of the damn wall gets exposed, and I think my next picture kind of shows this perspective filled up, so you can kind of see where the that didn't get all the way to completely full, but you can see it got a little bit of recharge this year, and then it even got a little bit more towards that nice wet spring. The last pond is Middle Pond. It's 321 million gallons. It was constructed in 1901. I think this was part of the original construction that they did. Some of these pipes are original up in the woods, so that is also another project that we'll be working on is potentially trying to get some of our source water transmission lines replaced, but they're they're 10,000 feet long, so they're they're not easy, they're not easy to do, they're all through the woods, and it's not an easy project. But if we're talking source waters and making sure things are not wasting water, we're gonna start looking into replacing some of those, again showing you how low this can go. This is one of our main ponds, this usually is full, and this is how low, way on the upper side of the middle pond, can show, I mean it's so low, and it's been low all summer, can start to grow grass. This is kind of showing some of the high side of it, 's trying to recharge, those same pictures, and it's up, but again you could still see that it's it's a good six feet down. So now we're gonna get into sort of some of the safe yield numbers, so this is kind of as I started reviewing this p10 80 project and started reviewing our source waters, safe yield starts to come to mind. I've seen a couple reports of three point six three million gallons up to five point two, I think we're more on the lower side of the three point six three, that is the most recent reports findings, because another different engineering firm used a couple different assumptions. So two different firms have given me a different number. Again, I think I'm going to be looking into a safe yield study this coming year if we have the right funding, just to try to really nail down what the safe yield number is, and actually look at our ponds just to see what, you know, when they're at different levels of height, you know what is the actual quantity of water potentially available to us, that way I have a, that way it might be able to give me a better picture, so when we get into these water restrictions it will allow me to know how the recharge is happening and what it actually means for gallons. So again we need precipitation to recharge these ponds, the past couple years we haven't had great precipitation, so they've always been starting from ketchup, no new water sources yet, we'll probably as part of this safe yield start looking at potential new sources if there's even any, again the ponds are pretty well defined at what they are, I don't think there's much groundwater up in that area, so that's sort of leaving interconnections And potentially Saco River as a source water. I'd say you can dredge the ponds down, but again, there the bucket can be as deep as you want it, but if I'm not getting any rain or recharge, it really doesn't matter how deep the bucket is. And then I guess you would, we would, there would be desalinization. So those are the kind of options to us. So I will start kind of having studies done to start seeing what our next play is. So more to come on that. Just to give you a little perspective, the December pond level readings, both the pond, now this is after a couple months of our high flow season, so both the pond is that gets down to his five feet nine inches, middle ponds as much as twelve feet down, Folly pond can get down to eleven feet because it's recharging the Bolter pond and lower ponds, excuse me, middle pond, and Bell Marsh is down almost 12 feet because it's trying to recharge Bolter pond as well. So as of June 12th, our ponds had come up because I think there was a nice two or three inch rainstorm I think back in May or June, and then it started to not rain anymore. So you can see that Bolter pond was only an eighth down, that's where I said it did crest it over. Middle pond was down about six feet, folly 11 inches, and Bell Marsh down eight feet. Well just to give you a perspective of where we're at since June 12th, we went out Friday, but then we asked who went out today just to say hey, what did this rainstorm give us? This rain was about 3.4 inches, so as what we see so far. Just to give you perspective, we're down four feet, three inches in bolter. So from June 12th, we went down a whole four feet. We lost four feet of water in two months, three months of usage. Middle pond is down 12 feet. So you can see we went down about six feet from there. Upper folly, the folly pond is down four feet, seven and a half inches. So we went down basically four feet and Belmosh Reservoir went is 12 feet down, so again it went down another four feet. So the lack of rain really gets amplified as our ponds go down because everything starts to turn into the old creek beds. So these ponds are not deep across the whole plain, they really have their river channel and then whatever the dam did to flood it, basically you know the outlying floodplain might only be two or three feet deep, it's not eight feet deeper, ten feet deep like the Actual river channel, so water demand to projections. So now we're gonna just shift gears and start getting into a little bit about P1080. It will eventually come, but here's our demand projections and the water demand requirements for the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in the district for 2021 and 2037 were in a report. It was done in 2021, so new average day demands were defined, new maximum day demands were defined, trying to use the Navy's projected usage values. So as I look at the safe yield, whether it's three point six three or five point two we have a projected average day demand for the summer in 2037 of two point seven one and a projected average day demand for the winter of two point seven six according to those studies the max day demand in 2037 will be 6.76, and the max day demand for the winter will be What do these numbers mean for you? Basically, this is taking into consideration the projected flows that the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard will be at, and I'll get into more of the P 1080, but right now I'm just trying to show you what some average day demand projections are at and where some maximum day demand projections are at, and just to show you that our treatment plant as of last year, our average day demand that we produced was 2.82. So the numbers they gave us was for 2037, I'm already there, and that's the big point of this story is that there think that we're 10 years from now, we're already here, between what they're using and what the district is using. So we are already producing this much amount of water. So in the summer, if you're not familiar with our system, more usage is done by the district in the summer on the lawn watering and all that. And the Navy usage goes down below, you know, below in the 20 and 30 percent range. And but it all averages out to about 54 percent Navy and 46 for district. That's about what we see. So the usage and demands completely flip-flop from the summer and winter, and it's the shoulder seasons that you see it. So you see that happen in about in like May and October. So we go from what used to be a low flow season of summer into a higher flow season in the winter. So now I'm just trying to show that the past few years of production wise out of the treatment plant, so the Navy's average was One point four eight, they had a minimum of point six four and a maximum of two point eight one, so that's some of their larger days in the winter. The district has an average of 1.16, a minimum of 0.19, so that's some of your winter flows, and then you had a max of 2.0. So I can already see that the treatment plan is producing a 2.6, and remember those averages were about 2.7, so we're again, we're approaching some of those projected average day demands. So the way I guess I use utilized that was just trying to show that 's almost a million gallons a day below the safe yield the lowest safe yield number so eventually sort more source water is going to be needed to continue to meet demands this is just kind of showing that production year as a graph the green line or the top line is the production at the treatment plant the middle line you can see how in the spring it drops down below the blue line the bottom line and that's showing you that the navy drops below the district and then the navy comes back up higher than the district's usage just due to their production levels. Again, this is that 2025 year. I won't go through all the numbers, but the important one is that we made, we produced 2.82 on average last year. Now it's beyond that number that everyone was projecting for 2037, and now with that projection there's only 0.8 million gallons left per day, so that's 800,000 gallons left per day, and again, we probably don't want to go right out to safe yield because then you're gonna go, then you're gonna really need safe, you're gonna really need source water sooner than later. Again, it's just showing the same type of graph. It does seem pretty consistent year over year. I didn't, I'll, I'll skip this, but this was just trying to show 2026. I have some more data, some of this data is probably getting more refined. I didn't have a chance to add it to this presentation, but again, just more or less it, when I did this it was a half a year and it was showing that the average production was meeting the demand of the projection, and more or less 800,000 seems to be somewhat a number that seems to be popping up as what's left for safe yield. And basically why do I keep using the number safe yield? Your average day demand should not bypass your safe field, or otherwise you're looking for source waters. This right here is really quick. It's taking the capacity of every reservoir if they were recharged every year. It's showing that raw water in my in the ponds can be to, we have 2.19 billion gallons of water in them when they're completely recharged just to show you for perspective the raw water we withdrew last year was basically 1.1 billion and they weren't full so when they're not full and I go to take 1.1 billion and there's not 2.2 sitting there and you know basically taking half of our supply let's say i only have 1.75 billion i'm still going to take 1.2 and it leaves only 500 000 left i mean this these are the this is what i 'm seeing this is where my mind is getting nervous and as I see our pond waters and everything hitting levels that I would normally see after three months of my high flow. That's why we were kind of in this level three, it was trying to kind of get something in place to try to slow down. So what is p10 80? P10 80 is a project that you know I kind of want to just basically try to let you know that p10 to 80 has come to us and I just kind of want to say that the navy's done their due diligence, they've come to us and they've told us their water needs, they've projected out where they're going to be in 2037 and they're making a significant investment into the district in making sure that the district possibly can support their water needs. But what it is basically, the shipyard is look, is doing a risk resiliency and redundancy project for their power and their water consumption, water delivery for the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. There will be upgrading our treatment plant from a five million gallon capacity to a seven million gallon capacity and you can see that there's projected numbers right up to what we're building, so 6.86. They're basically investing the money to get it as big as they need it to for themselves and then as part of that there's also some water main upgrades to help convey that additional water to reach the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. There's three components, CMP upgrades are off base and on base, there's water treatment, water main and treatment plant upgrades off base and then the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is doing upgrades of power and water on their base. I don't know all the specific projects that are happening on there, that's something if you're wanting more information you probably need to ask them. I do know that there is significant investment into working on their leaks, part of this project is replacing some of those bad pipes and I think there is as one thing I've heard is there's a possible new tower but that's all I really know is what's happening over there. I do know that the whole point of this project is to kind of clean up and fix some of the older infrastructure over there as I said it's six pipe projects that will vary in scope they range from they'll start next spring in 2027 the first one is working down on with the lab gate to provide some better interconnection then they're going to be jumping back to Bob's clam hut route one I'm working at bringing a new a new main all the way down to the traffic circle up rogers road to die on ave will be a project i think that one's 2027 and 28. There'll be a new tank penetration so that there'll be a new pipe in to the Rogers Road tank and then a one-way pipe coming out. And then there's some smaller projects over at Cuts Road and Beach Ridge to kind of make some of these last connections. And then the big project is really the treatment plant. They're going to be upgrading, they're providing redundancy to our treatment plant. They'll be basically doubling the size of the plant with a whole new treatment train with two filters so that we have the ability to conduct maintenance activities without feeling like we can't shut off for more than four hours. Right now we've almost can't shut the plant off without really starting to lose ground in our towers. This projects will start next spring as I said and it will, they'll probably go all the way through 2030 to 2031. As part of that, the Navy has started to talk to us about a reserve capacity agreement and basically they're wanting to know that the money they're investing is going to last for the water they need. And again they did a lot of their diligence and to show us what we need they need. So we're working with them on a, on that agreement. It's not a guarantee but it's like a reserve capacity. Basically they're, they're giving us a hundred million to, you know, reserve and treat water so that we can make sure that we can fulfill their future needs. I believe we want to support that agreement but we are working with them. I kind of want to make sure that you understand that it is not about the Navy. We made that quite clear on a meeting last week, we think, or two weeks ago. They are still one customer to us. Yes, they might be getting a lot of the water but they are still one customer and they cannot, we've got due to those big water breaks that we've had, we said we kind of can't keep happening that level of That so we're working with them on defining some of those levels. We're working at making sure that as the town is in a level three, that they're following those same rules on there, even though they don't have as much infrastructure as we do out here. Also kind of working with them at it, just an overall reduction in usage. Anything they can do during these times, we asked them to just try to do everything they can, because we're all using the same resource together. So some takeaways I think I'm getting close to being to the end here. Again, I don't have all the answers for you all today. I'll do my best to answer the questions that you may have. We have invested significant amount of money in a master plan and hydraulic model upgrade that I think that plans coming to me soon, but we are working. I want to know which pipes need to be replaced. I want to know what is what is what is the district's future as far as trying to meet pressure demands. Is there a new tower that I need to get? I will say that the Navy has kept rates artificially low for everyone. They are a 54% of our users, so they pay a good freight of the bill, but at the cost of doing business as far as metals and pipes and fittings and some of those things are starting to go beyond that, so there'll be continued rate increases. And for me to start replacing pipe, replacing transmission lines, you know, these are $5 million projects. These are no small little streets that I can get away with for a couple hundred thousand dollars. There's going to be some significant investment needed in conjunction with what is happening here today with the P-1080 project. So water rates are going to increase that's just a unfortunately I think the Navy has insulated $39 is not the cost of water it's pretty low, so we're gonna keep investing in water main replacement programs. I see potential new storage tanks, I see potential pump stations possibly having to come into play where we create high pressure zones. We're going to continue working at our treatment trying to remove as much iron and manganese as we can before it gets out into our system, so maybe that color Issues that we have during these water breaks can be a little less pronounced, so we are trying to make strides in that effort as well. And I think as this new plant comes into play, we'll always be trying to make the water better. Large housing developments, again, I don't want to stop any development from happening. It's just I don't know if I could have them come on the system. Basically, if what we're doing with those large systems moving forward is trying to, I think we have a rule now if it's four units or bigger, we will, we'll require the applicant to do a capacity development analysis for that development, and basically it will tell us if we need new water mains or things like that, and beyond the developer to try to do it. Basically, as I'm saying, the developer would have to extend the line. It's almost like the Navy is, the Navy's extending the line to their house as well. So future housing may need to consider groundwater again. I don't, I don't know the level of effort that the town is doing I don't know what, I haven't been given any type of projections to know how it all fits and where we need to go and how fast we need to find more source water. So I'm just kind of going off of what's come to me. I would say we just need to have a responsible growth and work together towards that common goal. The way I see these ponds and if weather patterns continue the way we are where we get rain and then we go months or weeks without significant rains. I think all this is, these water restrictions are gonna keep happening, and as we keep developing, they're gonna just get worse, or they're gonna be the level fours, or they're gonna just, it's gonna exasperate the problem. Maybe we consider low flow fixtures, maybe we don't require irrigation, or again, I don't have all the answers today. Day we are looking at an interconnection study with Kittery in York. Again, we use their water during emergencies, but we do not use it on a regular basis. They have different disinfection, and so therefore I only bring it in on an emergency basis, and that's kind of what I got. Okay, thank you. We do have a hard [33:35] Judy Spiller, Town Council: stop at 5 50 so we can get ready for council meeting. I think we have a lot of questions, so we may not get through all of them, so we may ask you to come back and do an act two. [33:51] Carla Robinson, Water District Trustee: I think he got two and then he got some this morning. Yeah. [34:00] Judy Spiller, Town Council: That's not enough time on a Monday. It feels as though we've got some conflicting agendas here. One is what the Navy is attempting to do with their P-1080 project, and then against what the town feels it needs to do to grow sufficiently so that it can be an affordable place to live. We've gotten some questions, and these we did send to you, I think about a week ago, about the P-1080 agreement. Where is the legal authority that allows the Water District to enter into that district, that agreement, to the exclusion of other customers? [Scott Mason: The reserve capacity?] The reserve capacity, sorry. Yeah. First [35:01] Speaker H (unidentified): of all, in our charter, there's a provision in our charter that we were created in order to provide potable water to the town for domestic, agricultural, all those means, except that we can enter into agreements with the United States government. But I think the clarification there is the assessment here is not a physical assessment. It's not like we're setting aside 2 million gallons a day just for them and Kittery gets to deal with what's left over. Everybody's working off the same pipe. So basically they have really done us a favor by saying this is what we need out through 2037 and oh by the way here's $100 million to help you do it. I wouldn't look at them as being competing interests. I mean, the shipyard is every bit of much, every bit as much of this community as everybody else. It,, what is it, what are they, up to ten billion dollars that they provide? And they've really helped us out in this. If we had to, I mean, let's be honest about it, the Navy's going to take what the Navy's going to take. And they, got two big pipes that run in there and they can pull a lot of water if they need to. But they've done us the favor of letting us know, you know, even though it may not be totally accurate out through 2037, it would be really good if we had kind of the same figures from the town. How many units of housing do we project out for the network? The figures, we've got kind of basic figures as to how much people use per person per day, and we can extrapolate that. [36:50] Judy Spiller, Town Council: And we're developing that through our comprehensive plan process. Yep. So you'll see that soon. Yep. [36:57] Scott Mason, Town Council: Good. So can I just piggyback on that? Yeah. What are the mechanics of how that works? If there's a limited supply of water and both the residents and businesses in Kittery need water and the Navy needs water and there's not enough, what happens? [37:15] Speaker H (unidentified): The pressure goes down. Basically, the system is pressurized from the plant. We've got three big pumps, they pump water into the water tower over here, and basically we work off the pressure that's based on the height of the water in that tower. When it gets to a certain point, the pressure goes down. We are bound by the PUC to provide at least 20 PSI. So if it gets close to that, then we do a water emergency thing. [37:47] Scott Mason, Town Council: So the shipyard and residence and Kittery suffer equally, is that what you're saying? [37:51] Speaker H (unidentified): We all work off the same pay. If you think of it as like a big trough, everybody's got straws of different sizes. [37:58] Scott Mason, Town Council: So it's not like you're going to shut off water to the residents to accommodate the shipyard? [38:02] Speaker H (unidentified): No, because we all work off the same mains. Understood. [38:05] Mike Melvin, Water District Trustee: Okay. Shipyard is different in the aspect. When we put out a restriction or water restriction, people know watering their lawns, washing their vehicles, filling pools. Those are the aspects they look at. That shipyard has their own type of process they use to throttle down what they do. They can, without us knowing what they do, they can throttle down projects, isolate certain projects, or put a minimum requirement on other projects. There's a way that they throttle down what they do. So it's not like they're not carte blanche and they just keep taking it. We asked the district to do it as well. We asked the shipyard to do it. And the talks that we've had, Councilor Solis was there. There, we ask them to continue to be that diligent with it and to be open and transparent with us because when we feel a pinch, just like the district feels a pinch, we know what people are dealing with. We understand that. And it gets to be the shipyard is a big place and everybody thinks, well, they're going to just walk all over everybody. It's not true. They've been working with us very, well now and respecting our request and knowing that they have to deal with the Kittery residents as well. I mean, they don't want a bad [39:15] Chris Andrews, Water District Trustee: You know relationship so yeah go ahead Chris. Oh I'm just going to say in the past year last winter the engineers over there along with Navfac have done a great job of redoing their whole aspect of freeze protection and conserving a huge amount of water during their freeze protection season and over and over a million gallons a day almost of less water being used just because of them they combined together to put their heads together because they knew last year that we are in a bad situation With the water, so they said, okay, this is getting serious. So they did some rework of how to conserve water, and it's it's been an amazing job, and they're still going forward with that this year as well, coming into the freeze protection season starting October 1st. Yeah, it's encouraging. Can I ask one more question? [40:13] Scott Mason, Town Council: Yeah, you said the Navy's paying for a bunch of upgrades to go from five million gallons a day to seven. Does that include sourcing water, or is that just a shh? No, okay, thank you. And the mains, the new mains that are being built? [40:30] Carla Robinson, Water District Trustee: They're really replacements. They're really not new. They're just upsizing and replacing, so [40:35] Judy Spiller, Town Council: improving the improvements on the mains. It's it sounded as though the water is moving directly to the navy yard from that. Yeah, okay, it has to, so there's not two sets of pipes. So the work that you're going to be doing starting around Bob's Clam Hut right down to Gate Two, that's a main that will feed all the customers, yes, along the way. All those people that are along that way will get [41:04] Speaker I (unidentified): tied into that new main. Great. A question on the as the upgrades that go into the yard are built in, is there will you guys gain any ability to squelch or control the maximum into them in the event that they have a runaway leak, to provide some backstop that's not shutting cutting them off, but it's preventing the max that they can pull out of the system. Is that one of the, is that a technical measure? [41:31] Carla Robinson, Water District Trustee: It's one of the things we asked for in our meeting last week. [41:33] Superintendent (Water District Superintendent): So, yeah, we're going to, as P1080 starts to really dig in and get into that, yeah, I'd like to, I mean, a gate valve is not something I can isolate. So, if I can get a different type of butterfly valve or something, then I can isolate. If I can't, then we're trying to work on this reserve capacity agreement to say, if you've got a break, Well, then you need to put your pumps into some kind of manual mode and never go past this type of GPM [41:58] Speaker I (unidentified): Because if the as we've seen, if the current diameter pipes that they have can draw the system down, Well, it's gonna be even worse. Give them a bigger pipe. Oh, yeah, they just [42:08] Superintendent (Water District Superintendent): That's my biggest problem. I mean, you're You're having trouble managing the water now, and I don't want to give you more to just watch more [42:22] Carla Robinson, Water District Trustee: Meeting last week about these leaks. They're not going to continue, and they're not going to continue at the expense of the people in the town of Kittery. And that was one of the first things I told them. You're one customer, I don't care if you're the Navy or who you are, you know, you're one customer, and we can't tolerate this. And so they were pretty receptive. I mean, they're working on getting the water district employees clearance to the shipyard. They couldn't even go on and help them fix a leak or find the leak for one thing. So a lot of that stuff is happening, and they were really receptive. I was a little mostly hustle less, but I, you know, I wanted to get the point across because these guys have met with them before, and then it happens again, you know. And it's very frustrating for everybody, especially because we don't have the water to be wasting. Yeah, they do have the means over there. I'm sorry, [43:07] Mike Melvin, Water District Trustee: no, go ahead. They do have the means to throttle down, yeah, and at our request, you know, if they see that they have a major leak, then they have a means of doing it. We, if we were to just go and say, hey, you know, you're having too much water, we try to shut them down, there are systems there that just you just can't do that too. I mean, you have to understand their industry over there, but they have [43:28] Speaker I (unidentified): the means to throttle down to help us, and it sounds like if I, if I heard my correctly, part of the scope of the agreement that's under discussion would oblige them as sort of the part of the fair trade of we'll give you some greater capacity, but you have to be willing to commit contractually that you'll take these actions to mitigate. [43:49] Superintendent (Water District Superintendent): That's sort of what we're working on. We're taking that type of approach with this. Get us on there early. If you can't get guys here for an hour or two, there's a lot of us that live within a half an hour, even right here in town. So if we're badged and we start learning your system, then we can help isolate it quicker instead of waiting as long. Because honestly, when those happen, it compromises our fire protection, and I absolutely can't have that happen anymore. I couldn't impress that upon them as much as I was doing. I mean, I was repeating,, repeating. And it really comes down to that, and that's where I want you all to know that I'm looking out for 6,000, you know, whatever other, besides one customer, I'm looking at all of you first, or just as equally as that. Chair? [44:35] Celeste Bragg, Town Council: Yeah. Having attended that meeting with the Navy, with the Kittery Water District, I have to say you didn't pull any punches. You were very forthright with what you said. Some of the information that you didn't share tonight that came out of it, an SOP with the yard for immediate response needs. For the Kittery Water District to be allowed access, as you just said, because we're there quicker than their recall team could be. Create a first responder team, a ready force of one to two hours, and the Navy did recognize as you foot-stomp the fact that not telling us that assets and the leaks, the responsibility was on them, and they realized that they failed. The other interesting thing that came out of that was that both leaks were free-flowing and not common and didn't involve the earth, and what was the other thing that I got out of that? Leak one is isolated but not replaced, and leak two is replaced and repaired. So you guys held their feet to the fire in regard to what Kittery's needs are. Now moving forward, it's what Kittery can provide for you and what we can do between Kittery Water District and Kittery and the Navy to make sure the calamities that occurred on their base doesn't happen again. [45:51] Carla Robinson, Water District Trustee: And leak one, the reason why they haven't fixed that is because they have a major construction project right by where that leak is. So that will get fixed when they get to that part of it. But it's isolated, so it isn't leaking anymore. But I felt better once we left that meeting. I think we got our point across very well. The new young commander Brown was very receptive. You know, we stood around and talked afterwards, and he gets it now, and I don't think he really saw that whole picture before. And I also told them that their publicity statement really made me angry when they put out that they were looking out for their sailors and their civilian workers, and I said I took great offense to that. What about the town of Kittery and we as we're figuring this out? But we don't have a way as the water district right now to blast the town. Someone helped us. We were able to get something out, but you know, and they thanked us afterwards, and the commander said it's good to get that feedback because we send these things out, we have someone write it, but we don't know how the town and the townspeople take that when they read it. Well, I was insulted by it, because I don't care about you people. I care about my little neighbor next door if her house part's down. You know, I'm sorry, but that's... [47:06] Judy Spiller, Town Council: Yeah, but the submarines were safe. Right, exactly. [47:10] Carla Robinson, Water District Trustee: And the civilians that aren't even over there on the weekend. I do... [47:15] Judy Spiller, Town Council: We are running short on time, and there was one comment, Matt, you made about, I think, future development will rely on... grant have to rely on groundwater and I wasn't quite sure what you mean. Well, it because we already rely on groundwater, don't we? No, we're surface water plant only. Okay, surface water all [47:39] Superintendent (Water District Superintendent): right, groundwork, so wells. So basically what I mean by that is if I don't have enough water, I mean, at some point here, I just, I mean, we're in, we're in this restriction, so it's not like I'm saying you can't keep building, but like, are we really gonna let people hook up to a system that we're already struggling to maintain? So the only option for people to keep going is to drill a well, because we can't keep letting people come on a system, a system that is, you know, I don't know, I'm no predictor of weather, so therefore I'm, I'm dictated by weather, and if I don't get full ponds, like, I can't see stressing a system just for the sake of [48:19] Carla Robinson, Water District Trustee: development. And this is something in southern Maine, I mean, when we go to all these meetings, everybody in southern Maine is faced with the same issue right now. I mean, all the towns, York is in a mess too. I mean, everybody's like, we can't just keep building because we can't serve, we, you know, we just, we can't serve, we don't have the capacity. So there has to be a happy medium somewhere, and you know, maybe we have to slow down and figure it all out. We're not, and just so it's [48:44] Mike Melvin, Water District Trustee: It's clear, because there's a lot that's been said about it. We're not against development or construction, but we have to be responsible for what we have, resources for the town to continue to develop. [48:56] Superintendent (Water District Superintendent): It's not just this town. There's Elliott, New York. No,, no. [49:00] Chris Andrews, Water District Trustee: Everyone's got an agenda. [49:02] Mike Melvin, Water District Trustee: So that being said, you know, it is considered that, you know, if Matt, the district, was more privy to your permits and stuff or your development so he can start figuring what he can and what we can and can't, you know, accommodate, you know, along with York and Elliott. So to be in on that, I mean, you're starting to get included with some of the development in Elliott. But if we could get included and Matt had an idea of what was going on in Kittery, it would help him to figure out, you know, our reserve, you know, and what are. [49:36] Judy Spiller, Town Council: So better communication. I am looking at the club. Yeah,. [49:39] Mike Melvin, Water District Trustee: I don't mean to drag that out, but yes, please. [49:41] Judy Spiller, Town Council: Say something about those emergency communications. The town has a listserv we can push out information about that. Okay, we're contacted as a sort of day-to-day way for you to get information out. It would just be an emergency. You can't do that and I do think that you need to develop some mechanism to communicate with and we are working on that now. It's got a new website [50:05] Carla Robinson, Water District Trustee: coming. Okay, all right. Secondly, Melissa was handing out water at the district but it was hard to get that out to people. Yes, I know. [50:13] Chris Andrews, Water District Trustee: So we'll look to schedule a follow-up. [50:15] Judy Spiller, Town Council: We'll see if we need a follow-up, or we may just submit some questions to Matt. But thank you very much. Thanks for having us. Appreciate it. Appreciate folks coming. Yeah, thank you. It's [51:08] Mike Melvin, Water District Trustee: fine now. It's up. But occasionally I lose, because [51:30] Carla Robinson, Water District Trustee: I distract myself.