Link to meeting minutes –> WPCA Meeting Minutes – September 30, 2021 2

OLSBA – WPCA
MEETING MINUTES – APPROVED

When: September 30, 2021
Where: Virtual Meeting via Zoom/Teleconference

The meeting was called to order at 7:34pm by Al Roy, WPCA Chairman

WPCA Members present: Al Roy, Dede DeRosa, Tom Annulli, John Cunningham, Sue Mahoney, Matt Merritt (ex-officio). Absent: Bob Palazzo

In addition, 2 BOG members and 4 residents were on the call.

Approval of minutes of August 26, 2021 Meeting
Tom Annulli made a motion to approve the minutes from the August 26th meeting, John Cunningham seconded the motion. Minutes were approved.

Treasurer’s Report
Tom Annulli, WPCA Treasurer, reviewed the end-August Balance Sheet and Income Statement. Tom noted that there was little activity in the month of August as we are in a holding pattern awaiting bid results. We will continue to accrue approximately $1,100 in interest on a monthly basis for money already spent on design work. All statements are attached to these meeting minutes.

Dede DeRosa made a motion to accept the Treasurer’s report for August 31, 2021, Sue Mahoney seconded the motion. The report was accepted into the record.

Shared Infrastructure Project Update
Al reviewed the bid opening dates for the three components of the Shared Infrastructure:
October 5th – Pump Station and Shoreline Sewer bids will be opened
October 12th – Force Main/Bioxide Station bids will be opened (one week extension granted).

No new grant activity to report. Matt is maintaining contact with Chris Murphy’s office and Doug Whalen (Old Colony) is on point with Joe Courtney’s office.

There has been limited progress on the Town of OL and East Lyme IMA (Inter-municipal Agreement) since last month due to difference in opinion on terms and whether the Town of Old Lyme should have a stand-alone agreement with East Lyme. A potential interim solution has been proposed to allow the Town of Old Lyme to proceed with their Clean Water Fund application with the State.

OLSBA Internal Sewer Project
The bid opening date remains scheduled for October 14th as no extensions have been requested. Al encourage people to refer to the minutes of the OLS Fall Meeting and the powerpoint presentation for additional details.

Exit Strategy/Contingency Planning
The WPCA remains entirely focused on the current plan to receive bids and formulate options based on review of bid results for the Internal Sewer Projects of each of the beach communities and the Shared Infrastructure. Recommendations will be made in collaboration with our partners in Old Colony, Miami Beach, the Town of Old Lyme and with deliberation and approval from the BOG. We expect to be able to communicate outcomes and recommendations to OLSBA members in the late November – December timeframe.

As discussed at the September 29th BOG meeting, the BOG has embarked on two parallel initiatives as part of contingency planning: 1) Review of legal and contractual obligations and liabilities; 2) Exploration of potential alternatives to comply with the DEEP consent order. Refer to the September 29th BOG minutes for more detail.

Update on Amendments to the Cost Sharing Agreement (CSA)
In 2016, OLS, Old Colony and Miami Beaches entered into a CSA for the shared components of the Sewer System. An Interim CSA that included the Town of Old Lyme was agreed to in 2020 with the understanding that a more extensive update would be completed to establish more operational details and to reflect anticipated changes in the funding structure for the shared infrastructure. The four member WPCA entities are currently in the process of reviewing and updating the terms and conditions of the CSA. Once the review and edits of functional content nears completion, it will be reviewed with our BOG. We will also fully engage legal counsel(s) before finalizing the contract.

WPCA Board Vacancy
We continue to seek volunteers!

Website/Technology
Nothing new to report since the Fall Meeting.

Correspondence
No correspondence received this month.

Resident Comment
Luanne Grennan referred to a recent article in The Day that reported Ledyard had received 4.3m for their sewer project from the American Rescue Plan. She asked if this was the type of funding the WPCA is looking for and/or could we get more information on Ledyard on how they secured this money.

Al and Matt responded that we are looking at any and all opportunities for State/Federal grants, programs, earmarks to support our sewer project. We have 120 days from October 15th to secure such funding and our State and Federal contacts are aware of the timeframe.

NOTE: After the meeting Al reported the following information:
In actuality, the Ledyard WPCA is in the proposal stages of a $2.7M project to extend existing sewers.

The proposed funding sources are explained in the linked article (excerpt):

“The plan is still in its early stages, but Lynch said that this fall, the town could seek to apply for a grant from the Department of Economic and Community Development that would pay for half of the cost of the project, while the town could use some of its allotment of $4.3 million federal aid money from the American Rescue Plan Act to put up its matching funds.”

The Ledyard WPCA funding request would be competing for a portion of the $4.3M allocation to the Town, which generally means a town committee would receive and score multiple project funding requests from various town departments before making any allocations within the town.

WPCA Chair Presents a $2.7 Million Sewer Project For Developing Ledyard Center

The next WPCA Meeting is scheduled for October 28th at 7:30PM via Zoom.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:05pm.

Link to August Financial Statements –> Draft WPCA August 2021