Volume 3, Issue 2
Fall 2008
Monson Takes 2008 Mass Rural Water Taste Test
Are You One of Them?
Mass Rural Water Association held its
annual Trifecta on September 10,
2008 in Northfield, MA at the Northfield campus of Mt. Hermon. We had
150 attendees who had a wonderful
day of training, good food, golf and
competing in our highlighted event,
Mass Rural Water Taste Test Competition.
Monson Water Department defeated
two previous National Water Taste
Test Champions and some thirty other
water systems throughout the state of
Massachusetts to be knighted “Mass
Rural Water Taste Test Champion
2008”.With this victory Monson will
compete against the rest of the country for the National Title in April of
2009. That event will be held in
Washington D.C. and is sponsored by
National Rural Water Association.
Craig Jalbert, water superintendent,
of Monson said that he often gets
compliments for the taste and clarity
of the water that is produced from the
ground water wells of Monson. This is
quite an honor for The Town of Monson. In April, when Craig brings his
water to Washington, Monson and
Mass Rural Water Association will be
shooting for a third straight National
Title for the State of Massachusetts.
Let’s all wish him luck when he jumps
to the next level.
Old School Water Operators
Pictured from left: Taste Test judges Dave Tuttle,
USDA, Yvette Di Pieza, MassDEP, winner Craig
Jalbert, Monson Water Department and Judge
Jennifer Pederson, Executive Director, Massachusetts Water Works Association.
Second place honors went to Norwich
Lake Water Company (of Huntington
Ma.) and third place to West Boylston
Water Department. This was a very
close competition and everyone who
entered deserves a round of applause.
This year, the three thirsty judges were
David Tuttle (Massachusetts State Director of USDA), Yvette DePeiza
(Massachusetts DEP Boston), and Jennifer Peterson (Executive Director Massachusetts Water Works Association.
Mass Rural Water Association would
like to thank all of our members and
non- members who competed this year
and attended our Trifecta. The training, barbecue, golf and especially the
attendees made this year our best
Trifecta yet. See you again next year!9
Training Calendar
• Prep for VSS/Grade I Treatment /Distribution Exams Monday December 1, 2008
9:00am. Northfield MassRWA office -3 TCH’s
•2009 Customized Courses Monday March 2nd, Monday June 1st, Monday October 5th,
and Monday December 7th. Classes with subject matter that our members request.
Please feel free to contact any member of the MRWA staff with your thoughts.
Water Operators have been serving
their customers for well over 100
years. Their purpose is to provide safe
quality drinking water to the public.
This work is certainly not an easy
task. Water operators come in many
different forms, some are young and
some are old. What does it take to
become an “old school water operator”?
Well before we can answer those
questions we must first describe what
an old school water operator is. An old
school water operator is a person who
may have started at a very young age
in the water supply field perhaps
painting fire hydrants as a school project or summer job. Maybe it’s someone whose father was employed by
the water department and Jr. would
ride along with dad to the pump stations on the weekends, Christmas
morning, or even out late at night because the power was out & dad had
to start the old right angle gear drive
in order to keep the water system
supplied with water.
The old school operator is not the suit
& tie type but could certainly get
dusted off and spruced up to speak to
his users at the rate hearing, town
meeting, or even the occasional
awards ceremony. He can make a
service tap, change out a hydrant;
crimp a leaking service when it’s 20
degrees below zero and the winds
blowing like crazy, with frozen hands
and fingers. The old school water operator is the one who would not ask
his men to do anything that he himself would not or
(Continued on page 4)
Page 2
Rural Water Works
People & Places
What's the difference between a million, a billion, a trillion?
A million seconds is
12 days.
A billion seconds is
31 years.
A million minutes ago was – 1
year, 329 days, 10 hours and 40
minutes ago.
A billion minutes ago was around
AD 35.
A million hours ago was in 1885.
A billion hours ago humans had not yet walked on earth.
Dave Tuttle and Dan Beaudette, of
USDA hobnob at this years Trifecta.
A million dollars ago was five (5) seconds ago at the U.S. Treasury.
A billion dollars ago was late yesterday afternoon at the U.S. Treasury.
Only oil tycoons conflate a million with a billion dollars in profit and tell us it is the
same percentage wise...
A trillion dollars is so large a number that only politicians can use the term in conversation without thinking about it...
This is for all the water operators that deal with millions and billions of gallons of water a
year.
The Holyoke
By looking
at this picture you
would think
that it is
just some
guy standPictured is John Kaczenski. ing next to
fire hydrant.
Well it is, sort of…
Let me explain, Don Chappell and John
Kaczenski of South Deerfield Wastewater Treatment Facility have been lugging a rather large, heavy gate wrench
outside to turn a sludge wasting valve
everyday for years when they needed
to waste sludge from the wastewater
system. After wasting sludge, the same
valve wrench had to be removed and
hauled back to the shop and stored
somewhere they would not trip on it.
So, after years of frustration they decided to work smarter not harder. At
Getting ready for the long haul at the
Town of Harvard’s pump test.
the same time they figured that recycling age. Next
and reusing was a good notion too. (Now they sunk the
your thinking, what do you mean?).
base of the
Don and John took on the task of modify- hydrant
ing an old useless fire hydrant to be the (about two
feet) into the
support column for their waste valve
cement
wrench. It would be permanently fasvault, making sure that it was directly
tened to the ground so that they would
no longer need to carry the heavy wrench over the valve stem, and patched it. All
back and forth to the shop. They knew it of a sudden they became artists and
would reduce time and energy every day painted it, highlighted the words and
tried to show off the 1891 date that is
carrying that beast and save their musstamped in the brass top. All they
cles at the same time.
needed now was to name it, so they
What they did was, go to the water dedubbed it “The Holyoke”.
partment’s graveyard and found an old
1891 Holyoke fire hydrant that was gut- According to John the waste valve works
ted. They cleaned it, removed the operat- like new and is quite unique. Where
else, but in New England, can we recycle
ing nut, and then inserted a two inch
pipe to act as the guide and shaft for the and reuse something 100 years old and
make it a functional piece of art. I say
wrench. They then bolted on the hex
head adapter to the bottom of the shaft hats off to both Don and John. 9
so it would fit over the valve stem and
welded a tee handle to the top for lever-
Thanks to David Kaczenski our Executive Director and Wastewater Circuit Rider for this article
Volume 3, Issue 2
Page 3
Threats to Water Systems: Sand and Gravel Operations
“Glacial sand and gravel deposits
were formed over 10,000 years ago.
In terms of a human life span, sand
and gravel occurrence is unique. As
a resource, glacial sand and gravel
deposits are not common.”
Ô
Loss of Aquifer Volume – Total
stored volume will be depleted.
Ô
Loss of Transmissivity ( Hydraulic conductivity) - Directly proportional to the aquifers thickness.
John M. Peckenham, Senior Research
Scientist University of Maine
Ô
Loss of Soil Filter – Present/
future contamination issues.
If you are a groundwater system
your wells are most likely located in
a major sand and gravel aquifer.You
also probably have a sand and
gravel mining operation either in
your Zone II or next door to your
wells. New research shows that the
removal of sand and gravel from
aquifer beds can pose serious
threats to your future supply. Some
common impacts are:
Ô
Altered Hydrology - Mining near
the water table can change the
direction of the flow of groundwater.
Ô
Change in Average Historical
Temperature – Temperature of
groundwater rises as substrate
diminishes.
Ô
Salt and Nitrate Loading – From
roads, lawns, agricultural activities near gravel operation.
To prevent most major threats by
gravel operations to water supplies it
is important to require Special
Permit Best Management Practices
(BMPs) The following are the basics
of the permitting process.
Field Perspective: Get Alarm Dialer Peace of Mind
After you lock the door
and are on your way
home, the alarm auto
dialer is sometimes
your only link to maintaining a safe adequate water supply.
Follow some simple practices to maintain your operations when you are not
on the job.
«
«
«
Keep a spare copy of the Auto
dialers Operations and Maintenance Manual handy.
Record all programmed phone
numbers and alarm conditions in
it. Update the call list when people retire or new people are hired.
The weakest link is the phone
line that is used to call out on.
Seldom used lines can be reassigned by the phone company.
Check for a dial tone daily and
once per month test one alarm by
activating the sensor that is monitoring the condition.
«
Keep a log book of alarms and test
using some protocol like testing
Zone 1 in January and Zone 2 in
February and so on. Program time
delays for zones that activate because of power dips or some other
reason when no actual alarm condition exists.
« If an alarm is out of service or being worked on, learn how to disable that zone only so that the
dialer is not completely disabled.
Programming help is just a phone call
away.9
Thanks to Circuit Rider, Mike
Leach for this article.
1. Gravel operations should be in compliance with all federal and state regulations.
2. Conduct an annual/semi-annual
site review by an environmental professional and chosen local town boards.
3. Excavation no less than 10 feet
from mean maximum groundwater table.
4. Require a remediation
“Performance Bond” like any other development.
5. Require several monitoring wells,
depending on the site size.
6. No fueling or storage onsite. A HAZ/
MAT plan and appropriate training.
7. Require proper berm plantings and
maintenance.
8. Excavator must have a plan and
actions to minimize dust.
9. The final slope of reclaimed area
shall not exceed one foot vertical to two
foot horizontal.
10. The floor of depleted pit must be
reclaimed with loam and seeded.
11. Any abutter that feels their well has
been adversely impacted by excavation
can hire an independent engineer to
determine. The “Gravel Owner” is responsible for all costs for remediation.
If you feel your water system may be
impacted by a nearby gravel operation
give us a call and we’ll come look at the
site.9
Thanks to Rebekah McDermott, Source
Water Protection Specialist for this article
Page 4
Rural Water Works
Old Timers (Continued from page 1)
could not do.
You have heard the term “jack of all
trades, master of none” Well this only
begins to explain the old school water
operator. Lets’ put his day in perspective for a moment.
A typical Monday may include arrival
at work at 6:00am. Payroll is the
number one priority at least on this
day. Then off to check the stations,
oh!! the cell pone rings, it’s the Police
Department, the contractor on South
Street just hit the service line that you
had clearly marked out for him on
Friday last week. Well, at least you
Greg Olsen North Dighton Fire District
Water Department
can shut it off relatively quickly because of your previous mark out.
Off again to the pump stations, upon
arrival you don’t hear your chemical
feed equipment operating, and you
can tell even before you unlock the
front door you have a problem. You
can just tell because of the noise it’s
not making. There is generally at least
some verbiage that would not be
used or allowed at the dinner table.
It’s a cracked head and there is
chemical everywhere.
It’s now 11:30am and you missed the
meeting with the Tax Collector to go
over the monthly non-payment notices, of which you have (27) shut
offs. It’s almost lunch time, so you
decide to grab a coffee at the local
convenience store and on the way out
the door you’re confronted by a young
lady who claims to have money to pay
her water bill which is due Tuesday
morning, she doesn’t have a car so
sending her to the Town Hall (3) miles
away just isn’t going to work. So you
take the $122.17 in cash, and pennies, make a nice nifty receipt from
your booklet in the glove box and
then off to Town Hall with the money.
In the hallway of the tax collector you
bump into the Fire Chief who thinks
you should take a quick ride with him
to the old abandoned mill along the
river, he wants you to look at the fire
service. Upon arrival, you can hear
the water running even before you
enter the building. This issue is easily
solved because you have a new shut
off in the street as a result of last
years CDBG project.
It’s now 3:30pm and you have not
even yet visited the current CDBG
project but you have a resident’s
meeting to discuss why the temporary
water service was shut down today
without notice. You were just informed it’s been off since 10:00am
because the contractor’s mechanic
ran over it with the excavator and all
of the repair parts are on the other
truck which is 157 miles away.
Now it’s back to your office to see if
there is any way to “cobb” a connection on the temporary service to restore water to the 100 residential
homes in the project area. It’s now
5:00pm and you have missed the
residential meeting that you now so
desperately want to tell the contractor
he must carry enough spare parts
each day so this type of event does
not happen. At the same time, you
would love to throw a “dig” his way
and tell his mechanic to watch what
his is doing when he moves the excavator. Now it’s back to the office and
a chance to check the flashing message machine, which has (15) messages, of which 8 must be responded
too on this day.
You’re finally headed home at
6:15pm for a quick bite to eat and
then back for the Commissioners
This photo was taken from the front seat of Lenox
Water Department Rick Fuore’s pick up. Another
one of those contractor mistakes.
meeting at 7:00pm which sometimes
seems to go on forever. You have now
missed Monday night football and
your work is still not complete. It’s not
even Tuesday yet.
Not every day is as busy as this one
but an old school water operator is a
person who is very dedicated to his
system. Maybe it has something to do
with being responsible for the water
to the “last free flowing tap”. He most
likely will not be found on a daily basis
with a shirt & tie on but a pair of worn
work boots with mud on the cuff of his
pants. His hands can sometimes be
dirty and the payroll has sometimes
been smudged with the stains of the
most recent job.
In a lot of instances the old school
water operator is a person who not
only is the Superintendent, but also
the laborer, meter reader, billing
clerk, collector / terminator, community & public relations, machine operator, and many more. He sometimes has to create something out of
nothing just too simply restore water
to affected areas. The old school water operator, a majority of the time, is
that person all by himself.
In my travels across this great State
of Massachusetts I have found several of these water operators. Gordon
Newell; West Groton Water Supply
District,
John
(Continued on page 4)
Volume 3, Issue 2
Page 5
Old Timers (Continued from page 4)
Sasur Jr. Three Rivers Fire District Water
Department; Mike Brown Turners Falls
Water Department,
stand weather you’re a member in
good standing of the “Old School
Water Operator Club”.
Greg Olson North Dighton Fire District
Water Department, Andy Tessier Athol
DPW Water Division, Rick Fuore Lenox
Water Department, Mike Knox Cherry
Valley/Rochdale Water Department.
Mike Gootee West Newbury Water Department and Craig Jalbert Monson Water/Sewer Department.
1. Do you have mud on your boots
at the end of the day?
These are just few of this very special
breed, and I am sure I have missed just
as many, so I will apologize in advance.
If you are part of this old school category, your community water system is
very lucky and my guess is you’re not
being compensated adequately for the
amount of knowledge and service you
provide. Sometimes that’s the way it
works out in this business.
Here is a simple test to help you under-
Water & Wastewater Construction
and Service Excellence Since 1987
2. Do you read water meters?
3. Can you tell what’s wrong at the
pump house by the noise or lack
there of?
4. Can you tell what type of hydrant
is on the street corner, in someone else’s system?
5. Do you work more hours then
you are compensated for.
Ô
Filter Media
Ô
Pipe Work
Ô
Ô
Valve Repair
24/7 Maintenance
Ô
Crane Services
Ô
Electrical
If you can answer yes to these five
questions, then you’re an official
member of the club.9
Thanks to Dick Kilhart—Mass Rural
Water Circuit Rider for this article.
603-474-7477
www.waterlineind.com
Page 6
Rural Water Works
Volume 3, Issue 2
Page 7
Presort Standard
168 Main Street, Suite #2, Northfield, MA 01360
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Notice there isn’t any snow on the ground, so no
Christmas Eve surprise for this water operation.
Best to find leaks in the summer season!
Rural Water Works is an official publication of the Mass Rural Water Association (MassRWA). It is published for our members (water and
wastewater systems in Massachusetts), associate members (industry service providers, etc.), agency partners and others.
MassRWA is part of the Rural Water network, which began supporting local water and wastewater systems in 1982. We provide training and onsite assistance to help systems safeguard public health and the environment. We are funded through membership dues, donations and grants.
For advertising or membership rate information, please call 866-451-8099. We reserve the right to reject unsuitable advertising. Acceptance of
advertising does not constitute endorsement of the advertiser, and we make no guarantees as to the validity of the advertiser’s offer. Similarly,
listing of vendors and manufacturers does not constitute endorsement of their firms and products.
Contact the Staff @ (866) 451-8099:
Dave Kaczenski
Dick Kilhart
Karen Morgan
Mike Leach
Rebekah McDermott
Dave Balk
Jim Deming
Wastewater Specialist
Circuit Rider - Water
Office Manager
Circuit Rider - Water
Source Protection Specialist
Technical Assistance/Training
Technical Assistance/Training
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Board of Directors:
Bill Selkirk
Frank Lyon
Jack Patch
James Gobeille
Joe Slattery
John Sasur
Mike Brown
South Hadley Fire District
Leicester Water District
Town of Northfield
Town of Huntington
Town of Southampton
Three Rivers Fire District
Turners Falls Fire District