Allenstown News : Sewer Commission

Stimulus funds available for Allenstown sewer expansion

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:58:00 GMT

Allenstown will hold a special Town Meeting on Saturday, June 13, to see if residents will approve a bond issue for $1,625,000 to upgrade the town’s aging wastewater treatment facility, with half the money to be reimbursed by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the other half to be paid from the Suncook Wastewater Treatment Facility (SWTF) construction and improvement fund.

In back-to-back meetings Monday, May 18, selectmen and the Budget Committee gave their support to a proposed warrant article for the bond. The article needs a two-thirds majority to pass.

About 50 people attended the public hearings Monday, May 18, in Allenstown Elementary School. After a brief introduction by selectmen Chairman Tom Gilligan, Michael Trainque, an engineer with Hoyle, Tanner and Associates, presented the need for an upgrade of the facillity, followed by his company’s design for the upgrade.

The facility, built in the 1970s, is at capacity, Trainque said. It currently processes 1,050,000 gallons a day. While the Department of Environmental Services has placed a moratorium on new sewer construction in Allenstown, the upgrade would allow the facility to process an additional 300,000 gallons per day.

“For the time being, it would give us additional capacity,” Trainque said.

Representing the Sewer Commission, Dana Clement said the town had had an article on the warrant for “the past few years” asking voters to pay for a full upgrade. Those plans amounted to $15 million, and were defeated, Clement said.

“This is our Plan B -- it’s more modest,” he said.

How it works
“How many of you have ever used an Etch-A-Sketch?” Trainque asked the audience. The main ingredient for the drawing toy, magnetite, is also what makes BioMag, the process used in the proposed sewer upgrade, work.

The magnetite provides ballast, Trainque said. The wastewater materials stored in the feed tank are compressed, allowing the system to handle more waste.

“This allows us to have additional expansion without adding big concrete tanks,” Trainque said. The magnetite is cycled through the system and eventually recovered out of the “sludge,” he said.

The BioMag system is state of the art, Trainque said. It was piloted in Sturbridge, Mass., and was found to provide an increased flow of waste products, better treatment performance, better removal of nitrogen and phosphorus, and a smaller footprint for the entire system. It was eventually made part of Sturbridge’s full-scale upgrade, Trainque said.

The system would be housed in a 20-foot-by-20-foot building, he said.

Trainque also showed a video of two beakers filled with waste material, euphemistically called “mixed liquor.” The beaker on the left was filled to the brim, while in the one on the right, with the magnetite, the waste compacted to about a quarter of the other beaker’s. The crowd did not ask to see the video twice.

Stimulus funds
Clement pointed to the urgent need for this project. In 2002, DES told the town it was at 80 percent of its capacity, and in 2005 DES declared the moratorium.

Since the article was defeated this past March, the ARRA funds have become available, Clement said. Allenstown was approved, and its sewer project is 18th in priority on a DES statewide list of approved projects.

But it’s a number-one priority in Allenstown, and Clement, Sewer Commission Chairman James Rodger, and selectmen urged voters to take advantage of this money while it’s available.

“If we don’t take it, the money will go to someone else,” Clement said. “The taxpayer is not at risk for having to pay the bill.”

But community member Sandy McKenney wanted it in writing.

“I was at the last two meetings where you discussed this,” she told selectmen. “The residents can’t afford to spend the money, and I’m glad the Sewer Commssion found the money in the budget. But I’m still looking for the word ‘guarantee.’”

The wording is there, Rodger told her.

“The warrant article says it will be paid out of currently available sewer funds,” he said. “If the Sewer Commission double-crosses you, this deal will not go through.”

Eric Ranfos asked why the town even needed a bond, if half was paid for by stimulus and half by sewer funds. Clement told him the money is reimbursed through a system called “principal forgiveness,” and the town has to incur the entire debt first.

Barbara Bilodeau asked when the project would be completed, and Clement told her late spring or early summer of 2010. The commission first has to do a water quality study of both the town’s water and the Merrimack River, and they have to wait till the river is low enough and then take samples at least two weeks apart.

“We’ll be OK,” he quipped, “if the creek don’t rise.”

The selectmen’s public hearing was followed by the Budget Committee public hearing and approval of the warrant article. The special Town Meeting will take place Saturday, June 13, beginning at 9 a.m. at Allenstown Elementary School. For more information, call the Sewer Department at 485-5600.

$1.5 M bond will let towns gain capacity without overhaul of plant

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:52:00 GMT

BY GINGER KOZLOWSKI

It’s a tough year to ask anyone to spend money, but Allenstown sewer commissioners are hoping voters will find investing some money in a new process at the wastewater treatment plant will benefit them all in the long run.

Commissioners Dana Clement and James Rodger are proposing a $1,550,000 bond to finance a new process at the plant which will increase capacity by about 1,200 hookups, allowing both Pembroke and Allenstown to move ahead with commercial development. Such development said Rodger, would help hold down the tax rate in the long run.

While Allenstown voters must approve and be responsible for the $1.5 million bond, Pembroke would share half that cost and be allowed half the hookups.

The new process While Rodger and Clement both say a new plant needs to be built, they realize the cost is beyond Allenstown’s reach. Instead, they are proposing to install equipment that would allow a “Biomag” process to be used. This process uses iron ore powder, which attaches to solids in the wastewater and makes them sink fast.

“It’s nowhere near the upgrade we do need, but it will give us a few more years, maybe 10 or 15 years,” said Rodger. “For us, the most cost effective way is to do the whole plant.”

Rodger said there are other bottlenecks, such as the capacity of the headworks, the room where all the wasterwater from both towns first comes in. “We’re almost at capacity in that headworks area,” he said. “In fact, this process could give us more capacity if we could expand the headworks.”

The cost Just what this proposal will cost taxpayers depends on a few things. With no help at all, the $1.5 million bond would add an estimated 42 cents to the tax rate, said Clement. Each year of the 10-year bond, the rate would decrease, to 29 cents on the rate by year 10.

With a possible 20 percent grant, that cost is reduced to 34 cents in the first year and 23 cents in the last year.

For the owner of a $200,000 home, that translates to $84 extra in the tax bill in the first year on the bond.

Rodger also pointed out that the federal government’s stimulus bill could reduce the cost by as much as 80 or 90 percent, but the town would have to approve the bond in the first place to be eligible for such help.

What’s in it for me?

Rodger said voters need to look at the long-term benefit to the town as a whole to understand the need for the bond. Those already hooked up to the system may feel no one else needs to be hooked up, and those on septic systems may say they don’t want to pay for a system they don’t use.

“The question is whether the citizens would like to see further development occur in Allenstown,” said Rodger.

He points out that Pembroke has a lower tax rate than Allenstown due to more commercial development.

“They have brand new fire department, police department, library.. They’re ahed of the curve. They developed that whole (Route) 106. So they’ve got a lot of things going for them,” he said. “It seems like Allenstown is a little bit behind the curve. We’re stuck with the plant, and tha’s why we have to pay the bond. But we don’t have commercial development.”

Rodger said the sewer system benefits everyone in town. “As it is now, we do have system that’s benefiting all citizens in town,” he said. “The school is hooked up to sewer, Town Hall, Bi-Wise, Irving gas.”

The vote The vote on the bond will take place on Election Day, Tuesday, March 10. The bond is Warrant Article 4, and it will require a three-fifths majority to pass.

Sewer expansion goes to voters again

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:07:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

Allenstown voters will once again consider spending tax dollars to improve its sewer plant.

Public meetings regarding a $15 million bond to expand the Suncook Wastewater Treatment Facility will continue after Allenstown selectmen and Budget Committee members put their stamp of approval on the drafted warrant article for the 2008 Town Meeting.

“It’s really a Catch 22, said Selectman Tom Gilligan, because the sewer expansion would end the block on hookups, bringing more development into town and thus expanding the tax base, he said.

“The town needs the revenue, but nobody wants to be hit with the full price tag,” Gilligan said, adding the natural increase of labor and raw materials as time goes on will only make the burden heavier.

The expansion has been a point of contention since the state Department of Environmental Services issued a moratorium on the plant in 2004, barring any additional sewer hookups to the plant.

Michael Trainque of Hoyle, Tanner and Associates, the engineering firm working on the expansion project, said the expansion is critical, with a water quality study on the Merrimack River currently in the works that may put more stringent requirements for water treatment in place.

“This is actually voting for the future. It’s for the next generation,” said Sewer Commissioner James Rodger at a public meeting at the Parish Hall in Allenstown on Monday, Jan. 7.

The problem, town officials said, is where to place the burden of the proposed 30-year bond.

While Pembroke residents – as a group, the plant’s largest user, accounting for over half of the plant’s flow – will pay 52 percent of the bond, the remaining $7.2 million that will rest with Allenstown taxpayers is still a sizeable cost and, in many minds, not fair to residents not hooked up to the town sewer lines.

Armand Verville, an Allenstown resident with a septic system, has spoken out against transferring the cost to taxpayers, as the current warrant article is written. Rather, he told sewer commissioners, he would like to see the ratepayers absorb most of the cost.

Sandy McKenny, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, voted not to recommend the new warrant article because, she said, she doesn’t feel the town is ready to absorb the cost.

Without the help of various grants the project qualifies for, taxpayers could see an increase on their bills of $1.67 per $1,000 of assessed value in the first year of the bond repayment, which would be a year after construction is complete, Trainque said.

For the owner of a home assessed at $200,000, that increase could amount to an extra $334 in that year’s tax bill.

The tax increase is compounded, McKenney said, by the fact that Bear Brook Park comprises 51 percent of the town and generates no tax revenue, along with several mobile home parks in town, leaving the brunt of the tax burden with a rather small group of residents.

Trainque said the expansion has a good shot of getting one or a combination of several federal and state grants which have the potential to knock millions off the price tag, but the applications can’t go through until Allenstown voters pass the entire amount of the bond.

Pembroke’s interest in this is greater in terms of development, said Pembroke Sewer Commissioner Harold Thompson at the public meeting. Currently, there are developers lined up for construction, he said.

Pembroke would have to decide how to fund its share of the project, for $7.8 million of the total costs, after Allenstown voters pass the expansion.

Pembroke would either have to schedule a special Town Meeting or wait until the 2009 elections to put the question of funding the expansion to voters.

“I’ve got enough commercial property stuff that I don’t think it would be hard to pass it on our side,” Thompson said.

Pembroke Selectman Cindy Lewis, also a liason to the Planning Board, agreed Pembroke is ready and likely willing to absorb the expansion costs, given the potential development and end to the moratorium it would bring.

“Pembroke would want the increase,” she said of taxes. “It’s going to be good for growth in both towns.”

With Pembroke’s larger tax base, the effect on taxpayers would be less than that of Allenstown, but no official numbers on that potential impact have been released.

Allenstown Year in review 2007

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 19:59:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

Chief convicted of stealing
In March, former Allenstown Police Chief James McGonigle entered a guilty plea to stealing thousands of dollars from accounts reserved for the department, the New Hampshire Police Cadet Training Academy and Allenstown Police Association.

McGonigle was sentenced to 12 months for one of the charges and one to three years on two others.

He reported to Concord State Prison on June 8 to begin his sentence.

The charges stemmed from discrepancies in the books, which the department’s executive secretary, Donna Barnett, picked up on. She informed current Chief Shaun Mulholland, a captain at the time, who called the Attorney General’s office to initiate the investigation.

McGonigle, 58 of Concord, stole about $8,000 total from the three agencies beginning in 2000. Cashed checks in amounts from $5 to $1,500 were discovered. Selectmen put McGoSelectmen put McGonigle on paid leave in February 2006.

Also a long-time Concord city councilor, McGonigle resigned from both posts on April 10, 2006.

“It was a very precarious, very difficult situation to have to be in,” said Mulholland, who had to violate department policy which says that the chief must be involved in any internal investigations, to bring the chief to justice.

State police came in to run the department until Mulholland himself could take a lie detector test, which cleared him of any wrongdoing. He was then placed in charge of the department. “It’s not a great point of history in the Allenstown Police Department, but it is what it is,” said Mulholland.

Sewer expansion
A $15 million bond to expand the Suncook Wastewater Treatment plant failed with Allenstown voters a second time at the 2007 election.

The state placed a moratorium on the treatment plant in 2005, preventing any more hookups.

The plant serves both Allenstown and Pembroke, the cost to operate it divided between the two towns based on the number of hook ups. Allenstown owns the facility, and thus is responsible for passing or voting down the proposed expansion.

The town’s Sewer Commission is holding public input meetings on the expansion plan and funding in hopes of getting voters behind it this year. Selectmen have not recommended the article in the two years it has come up.

Resident Armand Verville, has spoken out against taxpayer funding and suggested the money come from sewage users, adding that he is not and would never be hooked up to the town’s infrastructure.

Michael Trainque of Hoyle, Tanner and Associates, the company in charge of the expansion plans, said a combination of federal and state grants could reduce the total project costs by 50 percent or more.

The plant has been taking on septage from other towns in a separate process from the sewer operations to help fund the expansion.

Meth lab?
U.S. marshals and Allenstown police closed in on an alleged methamphetamine lab at a mobile home on Edgewood Drive in August.

Although the home was vacant at the time, a search revealed meth production materials and equipment.

Emergency preparedness
Allenstown police and fire, along with all of its backup authorities, participated in a simulated terrorist attack on Oct. 20.

The attack was staged at Allenstown Elementary School. The scenario they played out was a parent disgruntled over school taxes, shooting several students and staff in the school and setting off a bomb.

Officers, firefighters, dispatchers and other first responders had to react to the events as they unfolded as if it were real.

While they knew it was a simulation, participants were not informed beforehard of the scenario or extent of the operation, and many were troubled at being inside the alarm- and smoke-filled building.

Local Boy Scout troops and other community organizations also participated as actors.

Missing man
An elderly Hooksett man went missing in Bear Brook State Park on Dec. 2 when he apparently got lost while hunting.

Search teams composed of agencies from all over the state looked for any trace of Russell Bussiere, 70, for the rest of that week.

A snow storm and extremely cold temperatures, particularly overnight, caused hope to dwindle that Bussiere would be found alive.

His son, Michael Bussiere, said his father had been hunting for over half a century and knows the state park area where he was hunting well, but many of the searchers and hunters alike said that it is very easy to get disoriented in the woods.

On Dec. 4, about 200 volunteers showed up to participate in line searches of more than 10 square miles of forest. Many of them had to be taken out of the woods when they got wet and cold and could not finish the search.

Teams tracked their progress on a GPS mapping system at the command post and remained in the woods for about eight hours each day.

By Dec. 6, the search had been scaled back to mutual aid agencies only, to ensure the searchers’ safety.

The missing hunter got wide press coverage, drawing Boston and regional news stations.

The family held a press conference on Dec. 6 thanking authorities and searchers for their efforts and expressing their realistic outlook that Bussiere would be found, but not alive.

Michael Bussiere said he would continue to take small parties out to Bear Brook to search for his father and hopes to find him in the spring.

Suncook sewer expansion costs questioned

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:08:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

The Allenstown Sewer Commission is trying once again to get voters to pass a $15 million bond that would expand the current Suncook Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The proposed expansion would pay to construct new clarifiers to deal with the amount of sewage passing through the plant, doubling the plant’s capacity to 2.1 million gallons per day from the current 1 million gallons.

Taxpayers and sewer ratepayers would like to know who is going to pay for the upgrades.

The bond is set up so that Allenstown would pay 48 percent of the total bond, or $7.2 million, and Pembroke 52 percent, or $7.8 million.

Those numbers are based on what was referred to as the worst-case scenario, in which the project would receive no grant money Despite the town’s long partnership with Pembroke, Michael Trainque of Hoyle, Tanner and Associates, the engineering firm planning the project, said the decision to expand the plant falls on the residents of Allenstown because Allenstown retains the permit to operate it.

“Pembroke is really like one large user,” Trainque said at a public information meeting on the proposal on Monday, Nov. 12, at St. John the Baptist Parish Hall.

Pembroke Sewer Commissioner Harold Thompson said his hands are tied until the bond passes with Allenstown voters, adding that he fears the amount of grants the project qualifies for will disappear as more facilities throughout the state max out and look for funding to expand.

“It’s a hard sell. How are you going to tell people that we need it?” Thompson said, adding that if the federal government has to step in to force the expansion, the costs are going to increase.

The Department of Environmental Services issued a moratorium on the plant in 2002, barring the plant from taking on any extra sewage and thus limiting new hookups in Pembroke and Allenstown.

Dana Clement, the plant’s operator, said there are currently eight agreements with other towns to take on septage, which is a different process from the sewage clarifying and does not go through the plant itself.

Allenstown Sewer Commissioner James Rodger said the septage process has taken in about $2 million since it was initiated as a pilot program in 2005. Some of that has been spent on purchasing and installing special covers, on chemicals for odor control and on studies related to the proposed expansion, he said.

He added that the intent for the septage process was to raise money to put toward the expansion and to increase the possibility of grant money from various sources, but that the commission cannot commit to a certain amount of that money that will go toward the expansion.

Trainque said costs would increase in the future if the community waits too long to upgrade the plant.

“It’s always painful to do a project like this. Every community goes through that,” Trainque said, adding that the need for the plant’s expansion would not go away.

The options for funding the expansion include spreading the amount among all taxpayers, limiting it to sewer ratepayers or a combination of the two.

Armand Verville, a resident who is not connected to the town sewer, said he would agree with taxpayers paying 10 percent and sewer users the other 90 percent, but would not vote for something that would be distributed equally among both groups.

“I would like to know before this gets off the ground who and what is going to pay for it,” Verville said. “This thing will never go through unless you tell non-sewer users what it’s going to cost them.”

Trainque said the plant qualifies for several state and federal grants, some of which could reduce bond payments by 50 percent by themselves. A combination of grants could increase that savings.

In what he referred to as a worse-case scenario, in which the project got no grant money and the $7.2 million was equally dispersed among Allenstown taxpayers, taxes would increase by $1.67 per $1,000 of assessed property value. For those owning homes assessed at $144,000, Trainque said, that increase amounts to an additional $240.72 per year.

If only sewer users were responsible for the cost, sewer rates would increase by $5.80 per 1,000 gallons, an increase of about 89 percent over the current rate of about $6.50.

Should the project receive 20 percent in grants, Allenstown’s bond obligation drops to about $5.7 million. If it receives 50 percent in grants, the obligation drops to about $3.6 million.

Trainque added that grants paid for 86 percent of a $2 million bond for a 2004 plant expansion he worked on in Rollinsford, reducing the town’s burden to $276,800.

Thompson said the Pembroke Sewer Commission has not yet looked at how its portion will be dispersed, either among ratepayers or taxpayers, because Allenstown has to pass the bond before those discussions can take place.

“It could come down to the point that the users and the taxpayers could not pay anyting on that bond,” Thompson said, adding that he thinks Pembroke voters would pass the bond if they were legally allowed to do so.

Allenstown resident Jeff Abbe pointed out at the meeting that the sewer commissions from both towns must work together to get the project on track, and that impact fees from developers who wish to build in the towns should help to pay for the expansion.

“It’s so important that this thing gets built for everybody,” Abbe said.

More information on the plans and funding possibilities is available online at Allenstownsewercommision.org.

The next public information session is scheduled for Monday, Nov. 28, at 7 p.m. at the Parish Hall.