The Board meets on the first and third Monday of each month. Meetings begin at 1:00 p.m. and are held in the department conference room at 65 Lafayette Ave, Littleton. Board meetings are open to the public and time is allotted for public comments at each meeting.
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The regularly scheduled Board of Commissioners (BOC) meeting began at 1:00 p.m. on Monday, May 16, 2011 in the Littleton Water and Light Department (LWL) conference room. Present were Commissioner Eddy Moore, Commissioner Perry Goodell and Commissioner Ralph Ross, Financial Services Director Cheryl Wilkins, Operations Manager Richard Herrington and Administrative Assistant Sharon Hampson.
MINUTES REVIEW:
The minutes of May 2, 2011 regularly scheduled Commissioners meeting were reviewed. Commissioner Moore made a motion to accept the minutes as presented, seconded by Commissioner Ross.
The vote was in favor 3-0-0.
APPOINTMENTS:
Craig Kieny of Energy Initiatives, Inc and Stan Faryniarz of La Capra Associates came to discuss the following issues with the BOC:
• To see if the BOC is interested in procuring power contracts for 2012, 2013, and 2014. Expected continuance stability, either start laying some hedges now or
Mr. Faryniarz stated he did not see a huge amount of threat waiting until fall.
• Pine Tree Power –
LWL buy strip of power, long term contracts;
Purchase plant bigger then we need, great risk, require debt, would also put us into the generation field; and
Purchase plant along with other partners, can get complicated quickly.
In Mr. Kieny’s opinion it is not in the best interest of the department to pursue this, however, they have been unable to make contact with someone at GDF Suez. They will update the BOC once they have spoken to them.
• Bethlehem landfill gas project –
Mr. Faryniarz wanted to inquire if LWL is still interested in having La Capra Associates work on a letter of intent to Casella. This project would be a far more realistic option than Pine Tree Power. Right now thermal energy is being burned off and wasted. There would be some options for LWL to consider if interested in going this route.
Given: Would need to go through PSNH lines to get it to Littleton.
Least involvement of spectrum: get it to an acceptable tie in
point in Littleton. Through us, get it into the grid.
Other end: be small generator (go in with them as partners); owning a generating engine.
Middle ground: just buy from them.
The BOC will take all their suggestions in to consideration.
OPERATIONS MANAGER REPORT:
Mr. Herrington discussed the town wide outage that occurred on May 10th around 4:45 p.m. lasting approximately 2 hours. Additional crews and office personnel were called in to manage the outage. LWL crews found a Hendrix insulator at the 34.5KVA tap line to Partridge Lake Substation that shorted to ground causing Breaker #1515 at Pattenville Station to open. The outage also took out the SCADA controls for breaker #1515 and National Grid had to dispatch a person to physically inspect the breaker. Paul Bresnahan did a nice job coordinating repair efforts with LWL crews and National Grid.
The fault indicators that were previously purchased and installed at various locations along the highline proved instrumental in minimizing the time it took to locate the problem and make repairs.
LWL did have a problem with the paging system. Due to high volume of phone calls that came in all lines were busy for an extended period of time which prevented the paging system from sending an immediate emergency call to the on call crews. We will be evaluating the phone and paging system to determine where improvements can be made.
Mr. Herrington stated that the chlorine tablet system is becoming expensive to maintain. We have had numerous problems with the tablets causing additional overtime callouts. Kevin Sorrell is requesting that we convert to a chlorine pumping system and have the injection port located on the finished water. It would cost about $3,000 to build the delivery system. We presently are looking at additional costs and alternatives. Commissioner Goodell stated it could be affected by humidity, moisture in the building.
FINANCIAL DIRECTORS REPORT:
Mrs. Wilkins explained that the new debit/credit card cutover took place last Thursday, which should save the department some money. Eventually the customers will be able to pay out of their checking accounts.
Commissioner Moore asked about the financing of the reservoir. Mrs. Wilkins will send an email to Rick Skarinka of NH DES to inquire about the application timeline.
NEW BUSINESS:
Commissioner Goodell stated that the old Apthorp reservoir is empty and suggested
Mr. Herrington take some pictures of the reservoir to see what LWL wants to do. He thought that some things might be salvageable and should not leave it there due to liability.
ADJOURNMENT:
Commissioner Moore made a motion to adjourn the meeting, seconded by
Commissioner Ross.
The vote was in favor 3-0-0.
Meeting adjourned at 2:45 p.m.
The regularly scheduled Commissioner’s meeting is held twice monthly on the first and third Monday, at 1:00 p.m., in the Department’s conference room.