Core Team notes 11/3/14

11/3/14 CORE Team Notes
Attending: Kinny Perot, Kate Stephenson, Elizabeth Courtney, Peter Lazorchak
By Phone: John Connell
Peter Lazorchak gave us an update on what he’s been working on in terms of the wastewater design process. He touched base with Pete Munoz about system size and construction cost. The basic parameters they use to calculate cost are $15-20/s.f. for constructed wetlands. The size of the wetland is roughly approximate to the number of gallons per day being processed- i.e. if we have 5,000 gallons per day of wastewater, we would design a 5,000 s.f. wetland (or combination of wetlands). Peter talked to folks at the State about whether we could get a variance for reduced flow rates based on our historical data, which has shown an average of approximately 25 gallons per day per ‘weighted user’ vs. the standard engineer’s estimate of 100 gpd for a “boarding school” which is the closest equivalent on the books to YM. Peter thinks the next step is to go to the state with a more formal proposal for an adjusted flow rate of 65-70 gpd. Kate will also send Peter the original data sheets so he can look at peaks of flows. Unfortunately this is old data from 2008-2009 and we are not currently tracking daily or weekly flows.
If the adjusted flow rate is accepted by the State, we would be looking at a 3500-4000 s.f. area of constructed wetlands. This is a large amount of space, and Peter feels it would be likely spread out into a few separate cells, some up the hill and some lower. The need is to balance cost (fewer units is less expensive) with the need to make it fit on the landscape around everything else we have planned. We discussed how treating human waste with water is really dumb. John recommended reading The Toilet Papers by Sim van der Ryn and Kinny was interested in looking into regulatory paths to promoting alternative waste treatment.
Kate gave a brief update on her correspondences with Andres, who is helping to draft a grant proposal to the state ERP which is due November 10th. Once we get a draft on Tuesday from Andres, Kate will work to finalize the whole application. We are unclear at this point of the amount to request and whether it is just for design and planning or whether we are going for construction costs as well. (See grant details pasted below).
We talked about how to make our meetings more productive by having specific homework and task assignments in between meetings. Kate expressed concern that given where we are in the wastewater and stormwater design that it seems unlikely to be able to start construction in the spring since we also have to complete our Act 250 amendment. Elizabeth questioned whether this project would be considered a ‘minor’ application or whether it would require a hearing.
Tasks:
-          Kate to send original water data to Peter L.
-          Kinny to get name of abutter to the north from the Waitsfield Town Office
-          Kate to send letter to abutter re: what happens with existing culvert when the stream is restored
-          Kate will circulate the document from Tony Stout/Watershed Consulting that shows various permitting and process (attached)
-          Elizabeth will look into the Act 250 timeline
Next Meeting date: Monday, December 1st at 9AM
Next Meeting Agenda: Peter L. will check back in on design progress, Kate will present options for what to do with the solar tracker installation.
Suggestion: In order to help bring our new Core Team members on board (Ben, Eric, Elizabeth) and make sure we are all on the same page as a group, we recommend scheduling a half day gathering of the whole committee onsite in January. We nominate JOHN, as the Chair, to circulate a Doodle poll with some potential dates (maybe after checking first with Bill’s schedule?).
Grant Details from website:

2015 Ecosystem Restoration Grant - Round 2 - Request for Proposals (dotx, 854 KB) As part of the Ecosystem Restoration Program's (ERP) on-going efforts to reduce surface water pollution from phosphorus and sediment, the fiscal 2015 state budget includes capital funds to support ecosystem restoration projects. The deadline for proposal submittal is 4:30 on November 10, 2014.