Tag: Barnstable Water District

Barn­sta­ble Vil­lage Asso­ci­a­tion Com­mu­ni­ty Meeting

Last Tues­day night about 30 res­i­dents of Cum­maquid and Barn­sta­ble Vil­lage met at St.Mary’s Church.  We had a live­ly, and infor­ma­tive dis­cus­sion about all sorts of top­ics. I rec­om­mend you come join in for the next com­mu­ni­ty dis­cus­sion with your ideas, com­ments and ques­tions.  I will do my best to sum­ma­rize the high­lights. 
Agen­da:
#  Annu­al Board of Direc­tor elec­tions
#  Fire Chief, Chris Beale
#  Precinct 1 Updates from Town Coun­selor Gor­don Starr
#  Intro­duc­tion of the new Water Depart­ment Super­in­ten­dent, Sean Ander­son, and update of the PFAS water fil­tra­tion plant design and con­struct process.
#  Cyn­this Cole @ Com­post­ing food waste

Water Dis­trict: 
I have to start with the last item, as some might not read to the end and this is impor­tant.  Sean Ander­son is the new Super­in­ten­dent at the Barn­sta­ble Water Dis­trict.  Sean came to us from The Sci­t­u­ate Water Depart­ment and he lives with his fam­i­ly in Cen­ter­ville.  We all know that we need a new water fil­tra­tion sys­tem to assure that the PFOs are removed from our water sup­ply and the Dis­trict has been design­ing this plant. Sean looked over the plans and thought that the fil­tra­tion plant might be larg­er than it need­ed to be so he request­ed a peer review from an engi­neer­ing firm.  Basi­cal­ly they report­ed that the plant was over designed and that the job could be done with a small­er build­ing.
Who ever gets to intro­duce your­self to the vil­lage and say, :“I am Sean, your new Water Super­in­ten­dent, and am going to save you about 10 mil­lion dol­lars.“
Thank you Sean, Fan­tas­tic news.
There will be a spe­cial meet­ing of the Water Dis­trict on March 22 where res­i­dents will decide whether or not to vote mon­ey for the plant redesign. (Spend­ing mon­ey to save mon­ey)
Here is the meet­ing info and war­rant:
  http://www.barnstablefiredistrict.com/wp-content/uploads/WARRANT-FOR-THE-WATER-TREATMENT-SPECIAL-DISTRICT-MEETING.pdf

Fire Chief:
Chris Beale, our new Fire Chief, intro­duced him­self to the 2–3 peo­ple in the room who did not know him. He explained the 911 sys­tem and how those calls are rout­ed.  The plan in the future is to devel­op a coun­ty region­al dis­patch cen­ter. 
Chris also men­tioned that his crew will help res­i­dents put in lock box­es on the side of their house.  This box would be avail­able for fire and res­cue per­son­nel dur­ing emer­gen­cies (well­ness checks and 911 calls) so they can enter your house with­out hav­ing to break in.
Out­door burn­ing ends on May first.  

Coun­cilor Starr:

Blish Point Ramp:  Last month the Town Coun­cil accept­ed a grant from the Mass. Depart­ment of Fish and Game: Divi­sion of Marine Fish­eries in the amount of $25,000 for repairs to the ramp.  These will take place ear­ly in the spring. The state owns the ramp, but the town main­tains it.  There are plans to rebuild the ramp in five years.
Scud­ders Lane Ramp:  The Town DPW has held a num­ber of meet­ings with stake­hold­ers and they are work­ing on the 90% design.  As soon as this is done there will be anoth­er meet­ing to bring it to res­i­dents.
Com­merce Road Side­walks:  The Town has hired engi­neers to sur­vey, design and per­mit the side­walk from George Street to Route 6A.  The side­walks will be done at the same time as the road is raised at the east­ern end and the cul­vert widened.  Rais­ing the road is nec­es­sary to allow res­i­dents access dur­ing extreme­ly high tides and storms. Doing these togeth­er is nec­es­sary, but it makes the whole project more expen­sive.  By get­ting it up to the shov­el-ready stage we can look to grants to make this hap­pen.
6A Side­walks: A cross­walk is being designed and the Depart­ment of Transportation(MA) hopes to have it installed pri­or to the shut down of con­struc­tion work for the sum­mer on Cape Cod.  Also, I got this report in late Jan­u­ary from DOT: “a project was approved for the instal­la­tion of a side­walk on Route 6A from Old Jail Lane to Route 132.  The next step will be for the project to advance to pre­lim­i­nary design.  Fund­ing will also need to be iden­ti­fied and the project pro­grammed for adver­tis­ing.  Mass­DOT will be reach­ing out to the Town, Cape Cod Com­mis­sion and Old Kings High­way to coor­di­nate as the project pro­gress­es.“
This does not mean it is a done deal.  If you want to make a com­ment to the state, you can email:  http://Bill.Travers@dot.state.ma.us>

Barn­sta­ble Vil­lage Asso­ci­a­tion:
The BVA vot­ed in a strong Board of Direc­tors, but that being said, there are many oppor­tu­ni­ties and needs for vol­un­teers for the sum­mer con­certs, vil­lage clean-ups and the Fourth of July Parade.  Think about join­ing in for an hour or two.
Check in and join this group as it ties us all togeth­er.
https://www.barnstablevillage.org/

Food Waste:
Cyn­thia Cole talked about the impor­tance of recy­cling food waste.  It is a heavy com­po­nent of house­hold waste and there­fore rais­es the cost of waste dis­pos­al. If it ends up in a land­fill, it pro­duces lots of methane gas. Eco­log­i­cal­ly it should be treat­ed as a resource and reused in our gar­dens or dropped off at the Trans­fer Sta­tion so that it can be com­mer­cial­ly com­post­ed.  Cyn­thia gave out coun­ter­top com­post­ing bins that are avail­able for free at the Trans­fer Sta­tion office.  You can also leave your food waste at the Trans­fer Sta­tion and it is picked up by Watts Fam­i­ly Farm and composted.