WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What really happens if we do not do this?
We would be in violation of the administrative consent order and subject to daily fines. More importantly though, DEP would consider the existing systems at the schools to be out of compliance (even though they are operating properly) and could conceivably shut down the schools. Who knows if they really would, but it wouldn't be pleasant for the town.
We would not be able to use the cell tower site for anything and we wouldn't be able to increase the use of the existing school buildings and the relocatable. For example, today we cannot use the kitchen or showers in Emerson and will not be able to unless we build the sewage treatment plant.
2. Why not just expand therelatively new Florence Sawyer leach field?
It limits the expansion possibilities at the property and eliminates the soccer field. The two schools without any expansion are about8,900 gallons per day (Florence Sawyer is 7,500 gallons per day and Emerson the rest, but it is small because Emerson is only used for classrooms). The engineer estimated that the area where the Florence Sawyer leaching field is would only support 15,000 gallons per day and would require fill almost to the level of the parking lot. Although we don't have good cost numbers, they felt that the cost wouldn't be much different for that system than for a 25,000 gallon one on the sheep show field. So we didn't think the Florence Sawyer site was cost effective and we would lose a soccer field at the same time. A new school the size of Florence Sawyer could not be added to the inventory at 15,000 although Emerson
could be expanded in its use to include the kitchen with 15,000.
3. Will enough testing be done by town meeting to be able to answer the question of how much capacity $3M buys?
Yes, we believe it will. We have not seen any detailed cost estimate and the number they provided Thursday night was a crude estimate and the first time we heard it. We are actually hoping that the cost number will be much closer to $2 million than $3 million. We will have a much better number for gallons per day and for cost by March. They drilled some monitoring wells on Friday as part of the detailed exploration of the sheep show site.
4. What is the expected tax impact on the average taxpayer if we build this, including debt service and operating costs?
We have not calculated the tax impacts yet. However, the Advisory Committee included estimates in their November town meeting presentation that should cover it. They used $2 million for the sewage treatment plant at $74 per average residence or $.16 on the tax rate. They also used $3 million for a police station at $109 per residence and $.24 on the tax rate. So presumably we'll be in that range.As was mentioned Thursday night, the operating cost might be $60,000 per year within the budget.
5. Now that we turned down Taggart, and might have to build another school on this campus someday, where would it and its playing fields go?
That's something that will have to be worked on later, once the school needs group finishes its work and examines alternative approaches to meeting the school population need. But as we said, putting the sewage treatment plant on the sheep show field opens up the possibility of a larger addition to Florence Sawyer or a separate building on the soccer field. The Florence Sawyer building committee envisioned an 8 classroom 2 story addition off the music room. A larger addition could go out toward the soccer field if the leaching field isn't there. I had heard, however, that the current administration did not want ANY addition on Florence Sawyer because they preferred 650 student size schools rather than a larger one resulting from an addition.
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