The Raynham Channel
Welcome to Raynham Community Access & Media (RAYCAM), where we engage, learn, and create community access media. We are dedicated to providing a platform for all voices to be heard and shared. Join us in creating a vibrant and inclusive media community.
The Raynham Channel
Sewer 06/11/2025
(Episode Description is AI generated and may be errors in accuracy)
The hidden world of municipal infrastructure takes center stage as we pull back the curtain on essential sewer operations and public works projects shaping our community. Ever wondered what happens beneath your streets? This episode offers a rare glimpse into the maintenance challenges, engineering solutions, and fiscal oversight that keep our modern conveniences functioning.
Journey with us through the superintendent's detailed report covering everything from wet well cleaning operations to pump station upgrades. The fascinating before-and-after imagery reveals the reality of infrastructure maintenance - wells clogged with grease, improperly disposed wipes, and debris requiring specialized equipment and techniques to restore proper function. We examine how new technologies are improving reliability, like the recently installed pump at White Street Station that eliminates air release issues.
The discussion turns to major projects shaping our region's future, including the South Street bridge replacement scheduled for 2026, which will implement an innovative half-section construction approach to maintain critical utilities throughout the process. We also explore the Route 44 Pump Control Project and the commission's careful scrutiny of a system integration cost, demonstrating the delicate balance between technical necessity and fiscal responsibility that characterizes effective municipal governance.
Beyond infrastructure, we highlight the upcoming special town election for school budget funding and the commission's emphasis on civic participation. Whether you're a taxpayer curious about where your money goes, an engineer interested in municipal systems, or simply someone who appreciates understanding the complex systems that support modern life, this episode provides valuable insights into the hidden foundations of our community. Join us for this deep dive into public works and discover how dedicated professionals maintain the critical infrastructure we all depend upon.
https://www.raynhaminfo.com/
Copyright RAYCAM INC. 2024
I call the meeting to order today at 6 pm for Wednesday, june 11. A regular monthly meeting for the Civil Commission. A approval of minutes. Have you, gentlemen, had the opportunity to peruse?
Speaker 2:I did. I didn't see anything that jumped out at me no false statements.
Speaker 1:No, no misting. Okay, double spaces, that's it. Yeah, that's actually correct. Okay, all right, well, I'll entertain a motion to accept. I will move that second. I move to accept the minutes by mr Bickle and seconded by mr Kelly, any further discussion being none. All those in favor? Aye, aye, aye. The vote is 3-0. Correspondence. Please, somebody send us a garbage. I like it quiet. Superintendents report.
Speaker 3:That's um, it's a real source. Superintendent's report, june 11, 2025, department of Operations. We have had three connections to the sewer system since our last meeting. Wetwall cleaning was completed last week with some minor problems and counted, one being a backup float requiring replacement and a pump rotating assembly requiring changing out, and that was at the killed street pump station. 34 puppet station. Wet wells were completed, completely emptied and cleaned.
Speaker 3:This part of this work with the route 44 pumping station being completed today. Route 44 is a monthly task for us. The other 34 we typically do once a year. Maybe a few of them have to get done twice a year, but for the most part once a year. On the others, the guys who are working on a problem today over at the Walmart pumping station, we believe this may actually have been created from this work. That was done too. Anyways, it has a plugged-up air release line. I was speaking about those lines last month with the new pump at White Street eliminates that. But anyways, the line that runs from the pump into the wet wall which purges the air is plugged up over there. The pump will still operate. It's not a problem, just a matter of it does lose prime. It will not automatically reprime. You have to go over there and do it. So the guys are working on trying to clear that line out.
Speaker 3:The dumpster for disposal of the auto control meteor at the Route 44 station is scheduled to be dropped on Monday, as mentioned. Last month we received the meteor. A replacement of that meteor will take place next week, whether permitting. Both Sean and Chris enjoyed their trip to Goan Maroc plant in Ohio. They did find it quite interesting, learned a few things while they were there. It is a good trip out there. It had been years ago. The newly designed pump from Gormerup installed last month at the White Street Pumping Station is performing well and we haven't had any problems with it whatsoever. The guys tell me it really runs nice and quiet. Well, it's a brand new one and sure, and it eliminates that air release. It does have an air release system in it, but it's a little. I designed a little differently. Um treatment bill I received in process the third quarter service treatment bill from tartan, that bill being the amount of 15151,546.20. Again, that's a quarterly bill. A fourth quarter bill usually comes in after the fiscal year starts, so we have to carry that forward.
Speaker 3:I saw two pictures on the bottom there. Those are the wet wells. That's one of the wet wells I should say. Before it's cleaned out. You can see all the debris in there. That thing's really loaded up with grease and rags or whatever. Wipes are famous for being flushed on the toilets, but they never mess before they're cleaned. The second page shows that the back of the truck pipe going down in the well well, sucking it all out. And what they do is they'll pressure wash. Whatever they can get off the walls They'll pressure wash it off, and if they can't get it off of the pressure washer they use a scraper, so they have to reach down and scrape it off the walls. The right picture is after work was completed. So the well is pretty clean at that point.
Speaker 3:Oppa Generator Project. Tilton Electric has completed the process on this project. We are awaiting a submittal of the last payment request. I would expect to have this for processing at our next meeting. At that point we'll be all closed out.
Speaker 3:Dove Deals has scheduled the auction auction dates our eight surplus generators to be from thursday june 26th through thursday july 10th. There are other items listed from other town departments as well. If anyone is interested in these items, just do a search and log into GovDeals. It's spelled G-O-V-D-E-A-L-S. There are items on there listed not only locally but all around the country. Quite a bit of stuff gets listed on there. I actually saw a brand-new remote-controlled lawnmower I think it was down at Far River in Rebecca, never used, on there for auction. Brand-new, never used. You sit there and you drive it around. I guess it's intended for like steep inclines, but I was surprised they never even used it. 44 Pump Control Project. The recommendation to award, as you know, was issued to the low bid contractor, far River Electric. A project kickoff meeting is scheduled for June 23rd. Time bond has directed the contractor to begin with this middle process. I have received a proposal from time line for construction oversight for the project and this is listed for discussion on our agenda and business.
Speaker 3:South Street old colony bridge replacement. This is the bridge that goes from Rainham to Taunton over the river and I attended a meeting last thursday which included officials from multiple utilities. This meeting was to discuss the procedure and locations of present and future utility relocations on the project. The project is expected to be advertised for bid on june 27th 2026, with construction starting in the fall of 2026. And the project intends to remove and replace the bridge in half sections. The intent is to allow existing utilities existing utilities which will include the sewer force main which we have crossing over the bridge and allow that to remain intact by doing it in half sections. So the force main will then be relocated to the newly constructed side to then allow the removal and replacement of the other half. So right now, if you're familiar with the South Street pump station is the force lane runs out of that building along the same side of the road into Taunton over the bridge. So they can, the Marlis can instruct the other side of the other lane and then they'll relocate the force lane around that new section and back into turn and then remove the over and if there's some traffic I believe they're gonna shut it down. I believe they're gonna have to shut it down. That's the way you read it. They're doing, you know, one out, they're doing half. But I think it's to continue utilities. I don't believe they can leave it half open.
Speaker 3:On the next page, the gas Route 138 construction which is mainly gas main work over there. Now the gas company continues with their work on the gas relocation project. The main line is now pressure tested and completed. They do continue to work on service connections. I would imagine they're pretty close to being wrapped up, that being the gas company, and we're not sure where the project's going to go from there. They're not even sure if the contractor that was doing the work is going to return to finish. Thethey may end up actually putting that project out there again and doing more work than possibly the water line that they said was a problem. So we can see on that one.
Speaker 3:Rainium Highway Department projects. The Highway Department's project on Mill Street continues with utility pole work. Verizon still has a couple poles in which wires need to be removed over to the new poles. Tmlp will then remove the old poles. Contract B and Gabriel Construction has a tentative stop date of June 23rd. Sewer Department will be involved with extending two 6-inch sewer service land holes once the road is cut down. That's going to be in the area of the American Legion.
Speaker 3:I mentioned that to you last month and also as part of the project we may have a couple sewer manholes, or at least one that the cone section may need to be adjusted as part of the highway and pylons paving projects in the Elm Street East area, including Robinson Street, hall Street, elm Street of course, and Ann Street, I believe.
Speaker 3:As part of those projects we had 12 sewer manual framing covers replaced the britain street water main replacement project that I mentioned to you uh last month. North iranian water department continues with the replacing the water main on britain street from king phillip street up to and across broadway. The water main installation on britain has been completed but the contractor is awaiting an access permit from the state to get on the Broadway to complete the project. So basically they stalled until the state gives them the permit to dig up Broadway. So they're going to extend the main from one side of Britain across Broadway to the other side, west Pine Estates, formerly known as Layla. Work on Pine Street within the phase one development is moving on well. Sewer main is pretty much all installed. In the phase one they were installing the missing link as of today which was the portion from Pine Street into the development.
Speaker 3:The next phase of development was in front of the planning board on June 5th. The planning board asked the engineer to address a few things on the plans but didn't seem to have anything. Didn't seem to be anything that would hinder the project. They continued the hearing until July 17th. They continued to hear until July 17th. Special time election. A special time election will be held on June 24th. This is for a prop two and a half override vote to fund an additional three million nine hundred seven, nine hundred and thirty eight thousand and seventeen dollars to the Bridgewater Rain in school budget. Voting will be held at the Rainium Middle School from hours of 10 am to 8 pm. The town's website actually has a tax impact calculator on there which you can utilize to put in your assessed value and actually tell you what your expected increase would be if this passes. Pretty interesting how they put that on there, as usual excellent details.
Speaker 1:That is it, thank you. Thank you, rob. New business. We do have new business.
Speaker 3:This is related to the control panel project at 44. As stated, Far River Electric was a little bit of a div. This is for construction oversight. We have signed a contract with Tilebond for design and bidding services, so moving forward from there, we have the construction portion. As you can see on the front page. Scope of services would include construction, admin administration, includes project meetings.
Speaker 3:The start will have a pre-construction meeting, which will again be on the 23rd or 24th, and then to include four progress meetings throughout the project and the project manager and electrical engineer will be present at these meetings. It also involves answering requests for information from the contractor. It will respond to four contractor-issued RFIs. I can't imagine if they had five that the Italian board wouldn't respond to it. But I will clarify that with the Italian board I do all the submittal reviews which Tanya has started already, Review sharp drawings and product data and stuff like that review and process, pay requisitions, all the normal stuff that they do on the contracts, review across this change order request hopefully will happen, punchless development and then develop record plans.
Speaker 3:And that's all this construction admin. And then construction observation. They will provide a part-time field observation to assist the random sewer department. Tynabon will provide part-time personnel based on the ongoing work activities to observe the work of the contractor, obtain field data, assist the contractor coordination, record contractor progress and provide field status reports. They estimate 12 hours per week for a total budget of $48.
Speaker 1:So they won't be there. Are you saying that it's a four week job?
Speaker 3:Yes, they were saying they're expecting four to six weeks I think on that. Yeah, okay, yeah, period four to six weeks and that would be the actual construction period in four to six weeks. Yeah, system integration this is something a little different from them. Typically for us, the they were involved with the original pump station upgrade 20 some odd years ago where they actually the ones that did the programming and setup of the control data in the computers. So this does involve that again. So you can see, task 3 involves system integration, says they will perform the integration of the new control system. System integration will consist of upgrading and programming from SLC 505 to compact Logics I believe that's the programming and updating the operator interface terminal for the new control panel. This will consist of a total of 104 million hours and level 11 level of effort. You'll see a lump sum fee of 49 000 invoice monthly, based on percentage complete, and the last page gives you the breakdown of the cost and how they develop that. How does how does that fit with the estimate?
Speaker 3:So we had $275,000 is what we had for a project cost estimate, Plus the contract, that came in $178,396. Did well on that. Yeah, we did well on that. So we have $96,611. So we're within the provided funds. Yes, Okay.
Speaker 1:And I would assume that the recommendation that we proceed.
Speaker 3:With the critical infrastructure of the Route 44 Pumping Station and the problems that we had over the past year, I would say we really don't want to weigh in on this, but take your advice on anything on that proposal. We did have an issue back in February or March again. Actually, ty and Boren came out and helped us on it the programming guy because they had the program. One of the pumps, one of the controllers had actually locked up on us and we couldn't get the pump to run. So they had to come and plug your laptop in and go into the program and reset it. So that was helpful.
Speaker 2:Okay, can we just discuss the system integration a little more? Mm-hmm, can we just discuss the system integration a little more? I and Bogdan will perform the integration of the new control system. System integration will consist of upgrading the programming from SLC505 to compact logic and updating the operator interface terminal for the new control panel. This is all just manual labor. This is no software cost or anything like that.
Speaker 3:I imagine it's software or both.
Speaker 2:104 man hours, because 104 man hours divided by 23.5 is $225 an hour, which to me partly seems a little steep to me For something like that.
Speaker 3:You got me. I'm not much up on the cost of program things. If there's actual hardware, that we're purchasing, I would have to think the hardware is being provided by the contractor, although the programming part of it may not Well, the program, I mean the programming is just someone sitting behind a computer, yet of some sort.
Speaker 2:That would be my only comment in concern.
Speaker 1:Could that possibly just possibly be a licensing fee for the new program?
Speaker 3:like we, had to pay for the Naps? I hope not, because that's an annual fee. They're not disclosing it. I don't believe that is. I don't know if it would be a one-time fee or not. I would think it would be listed there.
Speaker 2:if it was, it looks like a change in technology, to be honest with you. Yeah, but it sounds like it's a program Again.
Speaker 1:$2.25 an hour seems a little steep, but within our budget I don't know if anybody wants to push back on them on that Systems integration, 100 bucks an hour would be 10 grand. So you're saying it's like two hundred bucks an hour, it's 225 235 divided by 104 is 220 almost 226.
Speaker 3:Ask the question, I will see what it involves. I'll report back here before we sign this next month. Do you need to wait a full month? Is that a time frame? Again, I'd like to get it moving based on if you guys want to get an answer. We get clarification during the week.
Speaker 2:I would like to negotiate that number down because if that's someone sitting behind a computer, then that's a very loose term. Someone sitting at the pumping station.
Speaker 3:Well, again, I don't know the technicalities of it, but I believe they probably have to do some programming where they're at, put it all set up, come down and then download it into the equipment that the contract is putting in and then get everything working. I remember the last time when it was done they spent some time. The guy that worked for Marc Jacobs was his name, older guy. He actually I don't know where he was from, but he used to fly into East Fountain Airport and come over and he worked for Ty and Roy, Again, it's 104 hours.
Speaker 2:I don't necessarily care if they're there here or there, I just think 2.26 hours is a little steep.
Speaker 1:But I'm only one-third of the vote here, so You're an important vote. Your opinion is equal to anybody else at the table.
Speaker 3:I can find out what it involves. Ask for clarification.
Speaker 1:Ask for a discount. That's clarification, clarification and a discount. It's 104 hours. I'm off on a tangent. I think of a tax return. How many people see that tax return and if 10 people put it in? Put one hour in on that tax return. How many people see that tax return and if ten people put it?
Speaker 1:in put one hour in on that tax return just one hour. You've got ten different rates because you go up the line and you have a managing tax partner who signs off, so he's dumped a cheap one. It's not like having the guys that you bill out at 45 or 50 or 125 bucks an hour.
Speaker 3:He gets 1800 bucks an hour, so I could see with the number really is expensive, but 104 hours it isn't one person for 104 hours.
Speaker 1:I have to think that there's somebody who's looking over the shoulder to make sure the system is right, because if it isn't right basically when you start to think about if it doesn't work right, it's time on who's responsible. So you take it always have that review to make sure you pass along. I would. I have no problem with holding off on your authorization to have you sign this. I would like to give him the authorization to sign under the condition that he can come. That Mr Bickel accepts or is satisfied with, Because I'm. You know it's within the budget, so it's fine. We don't have to go cutting. You know what I mean, but it is an odd number to see. We'll do, we'll find out. You can call the Rossberg discount. I'll do that too. He'll give you a disco Half of 1% if paid within 30 days.
Speaker 2:So and when you speak to him, just say member of the board, did the 104 hours divided by 23.5 came out to 225 an hour questioning. That thinks it's a little high. Is there anything we can do on this and please provide an explanation? We'll do and that's that. We'll get it.
Speaker 1:Is that everybody satisfied with that? You're putting the form of a motion to give the superintendent the flexibility and the essence of time. That's what I would like to do. If everybody's agreeable to it, let it all. Flexibility in the essence of time, that's what I would like to do. If everybody's agreeable to it, let it all sit with him, get it satisfied. If he's not satisfied, he doesn't sign. If you don't like what he says to, you say, well, I'm gonna go back to the board and the board's gonna have to sign off on it. That gives you the flexibility of not having to make that up out of your pay if your school would all right.
Speaker 1:So if there's a motion, I'll I'll move that the motion is to authorize our superintendent to enter into this agreement, subject to his getting a clarification on the question that was brought to the table by Commissioner Bickel. An explanation on the fee for 104 hours seemed to be. The number seemed to be extremely high. Will do it's made by Mr Bickle A little further discussion If it turns out that that's the fee?
Speaker 3:for an engineer for an hour, which it could be. Well, I would imagine this guy is some sort of an engineer.
Speaker 1:If he comes back and simply says that's our base pay or our charging fee for our engineer services, for that amount of hours.
Speaker 2:He should also have the flexibility to say, okay, well then, that's the price. Any science, yeah, but that's obviously not. Labor is radiant, or you? Know, tech savvy type stuff. So you want to include that in the motion? That's fine. I'll second that.
Speaker 1:That was in the motion. It's fine. That was in the motion, it's fine. All those in favor, aye, aye, aye. Very good, you have a job to do, thank you, thank you, all right. Old business. We have none. Come on. No old business. No emergency business. No commission reports. Public forum there being none, press time first time is nobody here either. Comment. We have a vote. The town has a special town meeting vote the request for additional funds for the educational department that we participate in. Again, it's a privilege, it's an obligation, it's a duty. Please have your vote on this issue. It's the 24th of June, it's a Tuesday, and it's from 10 to 8.
Speaker 2:There's also early voting and absentee voting as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, so, that being said, I will entertain a motion to adjourn for the purpose of doing administrative work only, so moved. Second Made by Mr Bickel, seconded by Mr Kelleher. All those in favor. Aye, we are adjourned at 6.29.