Water discussed at work session

At City Superintendent Mark Brown’s request, Holyoke City Council members held a work session immediately following their Sept. 7 meeting to discuss issues related to the city’s water.

He told the council that he, Lennie Fisbeck and Jeremy Thompson met with Element Engineering LLC on Friday, Sept. 3, to review ideas to address the issues.

He added that Element Engineering is the company the city hired for the conversion of city wells from chlorine gas disinfection to a liquid chlorine disinfectant solution.

“They love small towns,” he said of Element Engineering. “They’re very logical and reasonable people.”

Brown provided council members with spreadsheets showing nitrate level samples of the city’s different wells from 2002 through the third quarter of this year.

He said the increasing nitrate levels in the cemetery well are raising concerns. One of the possibilities of the increased levels is that an excessive nitrate plume could be headed in that direction.

He then discussed the possibility of getting the Stout well set up as a municipal well. This well, along with 318 acres located 2 1/2 miles south of Holyoke, was purchased by the city in 1996 from Clarence and Bernice Stout.

Brown said there are different options that can be used to bring the Stout well in, it’s just a matter of finding the one that suits the city best.

One of these options is to blend the Stout well with the cemetery well and come up with an acceptable nitrate limit.

This would involve connecting the two wells with underground pipes to let the water mix at a suitable distance before it ever gets to the city.

If the cemetery well gets to the point where it exceeds nitrate levels, allowing water from the Stout well to blend with water from the cemetery well would create an acceptable nitrate limit while still keeping both allocations.

“It’s one of those things we have to contend with and come up with a game plan to carry through so the city of Holyoke can continue to function,” Brown said.

He went on to say that Element Engineering will put together a proposal. Once Brown receives it, he will put it on the agenda for council approval.

Flushable wet wipes still causing problems

Brown then brought up the subject of the city’s wastewater, noting that flushable wet wipes continue to be an issue.

He outlined two possible scenarios to try to address the problem.

He said a grinder could be installed in the wet well of the existing lift station in Holyoke, grinding wipes up and pumping them to the lagoons. This would mean the lagoons would have to be dredged much more frequently since the debris would collect in the bottom of the lagoons.

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