1993-02-01-S
SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING
FEBRUARY 1, 1993
6:30 P.M.
MTG#9
BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT
SUPERVISOR MICHEL BRANDT
COUNCILMAN PLINEY TUCKER
COUNCILMAN NICK CAIMANO
COUNCILMAN SUSAN GOETZ
COUNCILMAN BETTY MONAHAN
REPRESENT A TIVE FROM MORSE ENGINEERING
Mr. Richard Morse, Mr. Jeff Martin
TOWN OFFICIALS
Harry Hansen, Pete Brault, Jim Coughlin
Discussion held regarding the purchasing of a new telephone system for the Town Office building. It was
the decision of the Town Board to go along with the recommendation of Harry Hansen in purchasing an
Automated Attendant answering machine.
Supervisor Brandt called meeting to order.
DISCUSSION HELD MORSE ENGINEERING LANDFILL CLOSURE
Supervisor Brandt-The main reason we asked Morse Engineering to come here to talk to us about moving
along with the work on the landfill closure. We basically know that we have approval for our first phase
for closing out the first cell now we have to put together bid documents.
Richard Morse, Morse Engineering-Where we're at right now is that we had the closure investigation report
completed for the whole landfill that's done not just cell one. But, the plan has been completed for the cell
one area which is just a mere image of what we've got out there except showing that cap which is currently
a clay cap. What we have to do at this point is to finalize the grading plan not only cell one, but the rest of
the landfill. We've been working on some numbers on that based on what the projected waste stream from
now until October 9th. October 9th, is the deadline that you've probably have all heard of and it's when the
new federal reg's get kicked in. We're evaluating right now whether that can be beneficial or not there are
some pluses and minus on that. I was in on a conference with Paul Dusek on Friday, that DEC gave that's
still up in the air.
Supervisor Brandt-They will get discussed later with Paul.
Mr. Morse-Paul is very aware of that. He attend one session and I attend the other then we combined
afterwards. But, what we need to do now if we want to start closing out cell one is to complete what's
called a Quality Assurance Quality Control Program, which is where we tell ECON how we're going to
inspect and insure that this work is accomplished. We submit that we also submit the actual construction
drawings the grading plan and details and specifications, they approve that and we can get that tum around.
We talked to Mount Pleasant today that hopefully would take not more than a month to get that tumed
around. It will probably take us a month to prepare it so we're two months out there, go into a month of
bidding so we're three months away from it. February, March, April, we be able to start at the end of April,
actual construction if that's what you chose to do so that's where we are. Then, I had sent Mike up a draft
of our projected cost on that and what we had done. The big lump sum item in there is the basic QAQC.
Quality Assurance Quality Control section which is where we provide inspections service, part time
inspections services. I've estimated that at three man days per week per thirty two weeks. In total of the
specifications, bid documents, grading plan, QAQC program, and the inspections are around $42,000.00.
Supervisor Brandt-We still also have to generate details for additional closure as we get a sense of what the
direction we should go in.
Mr. Morse-As you all well know we're dealing with a number options here and some of those options are
revenue generating options.
Councilman Monahan-Dick, your $42,000.00 it involves just the work on cell one?
Mr. Morse-No.
Councilman Monahan-See, that's where you keep losing us every time.
Mr. Morse-I'm sorry. What we have to do, the grading plan is done on cell one. The bid documents that
we have to do are for the rest of the landfill and that's what we're wrestling with right now. Whether it's
going to be eighty thousand cubic yards of additional or if we want to open it up and expand that. That's a
function of the waste stream that's generating this waste there is a lot of falls and error on that. We haven't
really realized all of those yet. But, what we're looking at here is the total landfill unless there is a change.
What we're looking at now is the eighty thousand, putting that in here Mike.
Supervisor Brandt-The eighty thousand cubic yards?
Mr. Morse-The eighty thousand cubic yards which was our base number that we looked at.
Supervisor Brandt-And that's still the intuition that you guys come back with all getting out of this
discussion between ECON and looking at, the new federal reg's and looking at what our possibilities are. It
still seems to make the most sense, Paul seemed to back that up in discussions I had with him.
Councilman Monahan-Your talking about eighty thousand cubic yards of additional waste coming in?
Mr. Morse-Correct. The only thing, I saw in the fed regulations that might play into our hand is if you go
beyond October 9th, taking waste then you have to go to a different cap design. The fed's stress cap the
state stresses liner well we're an unlined landfill it's a mute point to us. But, this new cap criteria is
basically a double cap they have clay and a geo membrane. But, as we we're discussing that in open forum
that clay, they brought up the subject papermill sludge with the clay on top of the cap. That's eighteen
inches of a clay material on a forty mill instead of a sixty mill.
Councilman Caimano- The reg's just changed that day is that what your saying? Something around that is a
cut -off.
Mr. Morse-That's correct something around that. That's the date everybody is throwing around, but that's
not a firm day, but will be very close to that.
Councilman Caimano- The most important thing is that there is going to be a change in regulations.
Mr. Morse-That's right. The changes if you are accepting waste after that you have exposure to new
regulations. But, the regulations are still in draft form. This gets to be a negotiation between DEC and
EPA Will DEC accept this as a modification of that so they are in a state of flux. The conferences we
went to where on those draft regulations and the public comment for them.
Councilman Monahan-Do you feel when this comes into play DEC and EP A together it will landfill by
landfill being treated as different from other landfill depending upon their own peculiarities? Do you think
it's going to be a blanket type of thing whether applied to your landfill or not really?
Mr. Morse-The reg's will be carte blanche for all of them.
Councilman Monahan-I'm talking about when we get into negotiations type of thing.
Mr. Morse-I don't know.
Councilman Monahan-How do you feel about that?
Mr. Morse-I think DEC is becoming more flexible that's my reaction. I mean they come up with these
mandated relief plans while we probably don't quality for any of that it shows flexibility on that part. We
don't qualify because we're over an aquifer.
Supervisor Brandt-What your saying for $42,000.00 we should be able to complete the engineering to go to
bid on cell one to do the quality control on cell one and to continue the other work towards the total
closure.
Mr. Morse-Correct.
Supervisor Brandt-If we change plans on the total closure we may have to up that amount.
Mr. Morse-Yeah. If I have to redo the plans another time then I'll have back to you and tell you this. If we
go over, if we close out cell one and we haven't got the rest of the cells ready to go and that rolls over to
another construction year then we have to come back. We have to be able to assure ECON. The three areas
of concern for ECON are the cap whether it be clay or a membrane. The vent layer and that the gas vents
themselves to penetrate the cap and....to the vent layer.
Councilman Caimano- Y ou said thirty two that is ball park figure?
Mr. Morse-That is what we considered a construction season.
Councilman Caimano- What if it went a little bit longer?
Mr. Morse-We took a shot at that and we took a shot at... We're not looking to have somebody camp out
there. If it took longer maybe that's because of foul weather the contractor wasn't working, the contractor's
not working we're not going to be there for him.
Councilman Monahan-Thirty two weeks is for the whole landfill or are we talking about cell one?
Mr. Morse-We're talking about whatever can be accomplished in thirty-two weeks. If we can't close the
whole landfill in one year then it's going to have to go over it. We're in a state of flux on this.
Councilman Monahan-This plan that your preparing that is going to take two months between you... then
one month for bidding that plan is for the whole landfill? How can we do that if we haven't been approve?
Mr. Morse-If we decided that it's going to be the eighty thousand yards that we're going to put in there and
that's a budget consideration based on what we're going to pull into the landfill because there are three
elements. There is potential clay, potential Roilite,....
Councilman Caimano-Sludge.
Mr. Morse-I call that clay. The waste stream that we are currently handling those are the three elements.
One of those we have a handle on the waste stream. The other two we just don't know how we're going to
respond to that.
Councilman Monahan-But your CIR, has only been accepted and approve for cell one, right? It's been
accepted for the whole landfill?
Mr. Morse-Correct, right Jeff?
Mr. Martin-Yes.
Mr. Morse-There were additional questions that they had in November we responded to them in December
and that's what you've got. We had to go and get more data and that's the bill that's in front of you.
Councilman Monahan-Dick, after you do cell one it will surely give you a better handle on what you've got
to do for the rest of it, right?
Mr. Morse-I don't really see a changing cap philosophy once we've committed to cell one. We have to
decide pretty quickly if we're going to proceed with this season if we're going to go to clay or membrane.
Once that's decision is made we just change the details to reflect that.
Councilman Monahan-Have you done the cost accounting on that?
Mr. Morse-No. It's all based on clay at this point. I believe there would be a savings in artificial
membrane. It makes life a lot simpler for the QAQC program too. There might be some savings there we
don't have clay to install.
Supervisor Brandt -You have to see the Finch Pruyn work recently on their landfill near ours they put a liner
through the whole thing with a vacuum pump under it to gather up all the gases. I think it's a forty mill
with some fiber in it to strengthen it and it's worked really well. They had a seal to glue all their joints, I
went over and took a look at it. Especially if your coming down to forty mill that looks like essentially....
Mr. Morse-The reason why, I brought up the new concept that EP A is putting out to DEC it's accepted and
their going with it in their draft. I mean it makes a better liner it has a sludge and a liner.
Supervisor Brandt-Right.
Mr. Morse-That's a plus for us because that's a revenue source instead of a detriment. That was something,
I thought about over the weekend.
Supervisor Brandt -You bid construction work a lot in the past. If we get out with our bids in the early
spring that's when contractors are still hungry so you get your best bids you have the most competition. So,
we should be pushing this as fast as we can.
Councilman Tucker-If you want to go to work in May you ought to be bidding it in March or April if you
can.
Councilman Monahan-You should be bidding it in March. Is there any layer in there that has to be
compacted like the system we were looking at first, that's part of the problem I understand is watching the
compaction and making sure it's....
Mr. Morse-Compaction is not an issue.
Councilman Monahan-Okay, that's what I was wondering.
Mr. Morse-Seaming is an issue with that.
Councilman Goetz-On your time table would you be able to bid more based on what you said?
Mr. Morse-Bid in March, maybe the tail end of March. ECON gave us a window today of a month to
review. Ifwe started tomorrow with the plans we would hopefully have those out in a month. They go to
ECON the first of March we would get those back the end of March approved ready to go. Then bid the
end of March for thirty days.
Councilman Monahan-Once you get the approvals from ECON how long would it be to prepare your bid
document?
Mr. Morse-They would basically be ready at that point. We would send out a package we probably not
send the boiler plate section out, but that's pretty cut and dry. We've been through that just recently with
you on that and that's not going to change much from the sidewalk project that we did. Paul has been
through ours so we're comfortable we're just changing...what it is, how we want to bid it. That's another
thing we would have to discuss is whether we want to do ...materials, lump sum or whatever.
Supervisor Brandt-We basically need to approve money to continue this work and it's a big chuck
$42,000.00.
Councilman Tucker-This is what we talked about last week. Do you feel comfortable with it now?
Councilman Monahan-At least I know the scope now before I wasn't sure. I think we should really go into
public session, I think it's better.
Supervisor Brandt-Any other questions?
Councilman Caimano-We talked about cost and different things that are happening as we go along all you
can do is keep us informed. What we can't do is get a bill after the fact and say, oop fifteen hundred dollars
more. Let us know before hand so we can know and the public knows.
Mr. Morse-Okay. I apologize for any over sites on that part. We bill on a monthly basis we really only log
in hours once a month. I mean time cards are kept on a weekly basis, but they are only logged in once a
month. Sometimes we run over on a budget that we all ready set, I don't have a problem and I don't mind
coming up to you and explaining it to you. Don't hesitate to call me and ask me on any of these we always
have the backup to support what we've been doing and why. We did send a letter along with the last one
that we had.
Supervisor Brandt-Motion to adjourn meeting.
No further action taken.
On motion the meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully Submitted,
Darleen M. Dougher
Town Clerk
Town of Queensbury