ORDER-2018-44 : Petition of National Grid for Gas Main Locations: Install l,650 ft. of 8” PL main on Warren St, Franklin St, and Woodland Ave. from the existing 8” (60 psig) BS main on Warren St at the inlet to the Warren @ Franklin regulator station to the existing 8” (60 psig) BS main on Greenwood St at the Wakefield Town border.

Transcript (~30 min @ 20:58)

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▶ 21:00 Speaker 1: sure they'll be here

▶ 21:05 Speaker 1: oh this guy this guy

▶ 21:34 Monica C. Medeiros: thank you okay alderman medeiros uh motion to open the public hearing for order number 2018-44 assuming the appropriate people second all the members moves to

▶ 21:41 Speaker 1: commence a public hearing on order 2018-44 motion is seconded by Alderman Inferno on the motion all those in favor aye anyone opposed motion passes could

▶ 21:56 Speaker 4: you please redo it petition of order number 2018-44 petition of national grid for gas main locations install 1650 feet of 8 inch PL main on Warren Street Franklin Street and Woodland Ave from the existing 8 inch 60 PSIG BS on main Warren Street BS main on Warren Street at the inlet to the warrant at Franklin regulator station to the existing 8 inch 60 PSIG BS main on Greenwood Street at the Wakefield town border we're gonna commence a public hearing anybody who

▶ 22:30 Speaker 1: wishes to speak relative to this order please come forward to the table in the center of the room there's no particular order relative to speaking and please

▶ 22:46 Speaker 1: identify yourself sure my name is Richard O'Gara I live at 68 Woodland

▶ 22:53 Speaker 1: Avenue lived there for 20 years I just have some questions about the plan I have five of them actually what are the planned project dates what are the

▶ 23:08 Speaker 1: project days and hours of operation what are the planned truck arrival times what are the planned staging areas and who are the project contacts and the public relations contact for this project those are my questions it's based on previous work that was done in our our area by national grid and uh my front property was used for staging area and i would request that it was not used for one this time i would also request that trucks did not show up at 5 30 in the morning with heavy equipment as happened to me before so that's why i'm asking these questions now so we can put those things on the table and i have a written written paper here with my name and contact for the National Grid person, whoever that should happen to be.

▶ 24:00 Speaker 1: So I don't know if you want me to sign in here or whatever.

▶ 24:04 Speaker 1: Any questions for me? We don't go back and forth with questions, sir. Thank you. Anyone else here who wishes to discuss this order? Is there anybody from National Grid who is here to discuss this order? Could you come forward, please, sir?

▶ 24:23 Speaker 5: Good evening. Thank you. I'm Bobby Colleton. for national grid i'm the project supervisor for this project could you describe the project what

▶ 24:31 Speaker 1: what the work will entail the dates on which the work is expected to be done the hours of work and anything else that might be relevant to the board's consideration yes sir so it's 1600 feet

▶ 24:43 Speaker 5: approximately and the purpose of it is to tie two of our high pressure mains together to reinforce the low pressure system for the neighborhoods that use gas in that district the reason behind that is several of the neighborhoods are dead-ended low-pressure mains so to maintain a reliable service we want to reinforce that structure by bringing it from the Wakefield border to the regulator station at Franklin and at Warren at Franklin it would be weekday work 7 a.m. start to 3 30 finish usually they're out of there off the street by 3 30. this work would not entail any service work it is strictly a reinforcement main through that that neighborhood so there will be no service interruptions there will be no tie overs any service work whatsoever like i said again it would be weekday work 7 a.m to 3 30. per engineering we would not be doing this for winter work at their request so it would be spring at the earliest that

▶ 25:45 Speaker 1: we would start and have you seen the memorandum dated december 4th 2017 authored by miss prowakus

▶ 25:57 Speaker 1: ellis uh yes sir i have okay okay thank you sir we're going to invite you back in a few minutes for questions anyone else who wishes to speak on this order my name is julia chen i live at 39

▶ 26:09 Speaker 3: woodland avenue uh one of the things i've come before the traffic commission before because we have a high volume of traffic on woodland avenue in the morning we also because of repeated paving on our street no longer have curbs on our street and we have children walking to school so with construction early in the morning i would like the board to consider that when this repaving happens that the curbs be reinstalled on woodland avenue as well i understand the order i looked at the uh the entry on the website from when the board first considered this motion and it was estimated as negligible cost to the city um i think that's worth looking at if we're going to have to be replacing curbs and paving etc thank you thank you anyone else who wishes to speak

▶ 27:03 Speaker 1: i'm going to close the public hearing second alderman mortimer moves to close the public hearing portion of consideration relative to this order the motion is seconded by alderman Tramontozzi on the motion all those in favor aye aye aye anyone opposed motion passes i don't think we've previously suspended the rules this evening could somebody make so moved second alderman swirko makes a motion to suspend the rules motion seconded by alderman forbes on the motion all those in favor aye aye anyone opposed rules are suspended could the gentleman from national grid please come up again to entertain questions from the board we have questions for the gentleman

▶ 27:39 Speaker 1: relative to the project alderman Tramontozzi tozy um yes so you heard the request about the uh start

▶ 27:46 John N. Tramontozzi: times it said yes so uh your firm on the start time it being 7 30. uh we can look at the traffic volume we're per the memorandum or per the letter from engineering it says that we have to do a traffic management plan with the police department and engineering prior to the start so we can definitely look at the times and we can adjust those times if needed no early not really starting like you like sometimes it has happened in the past staging area is it going to be is there a requirement for you having equipment on site during the period of time yes there will be a requirement for equipment on type and also for pipe for staging our pipe forward we'll work with mr canton from the dpw in order to provide for the best area we won't block anyone's driveway or access to the road is there going to be need to put staging staging area on private property uh we won't put we'll try our best not to put it on private property but we won't put put it on prior property without prior approval from that property owner. And you will post your contact information and provide that to Public Works Engineer? Yes, sir. And any residents have any questions or concerns? Yes, sir. Prior to the start of any job, a letter will go out, several letters will go out. One of those will include my cell phone number. I will also meet with the residents prior to the start of the job to answer any questions and talk about the scope of the work. They can call my cell phone 24 hours a day. was also a i received the um an email from a resident at 88 woodland avenue miss paula burn and i think it's part of the i saw it in the in the order did you see that um that letter as well i i did not see i have not looked at that letter i i think the engineer has one but i'll give it to you it's just a concern that she has had uh relative to uh her sewer there's a sewer line there that she wants to make sure you understand that it's uh present so it's uh if there's any digging involved it doesn't affect the extent of the sewer line i'm going to present give it to you so you'll have it and just make sure you keep an eye out for that with regards to that

▶ 29:55 Speaker 5: sewer line sir we follow the dig safe rules so all all utilities will be marked out we also follow a test hole and verification hole process so prior to digging any trench to install our pipe we make sure we verify every single utility that's in the ground with those dig safe marks and re remark them if they're off so we will visually inspect every utility first so we don't come across them now that would be appreciated it's not necessarily foolproof because obviously from her letter um they had uh who i'm not saying was you guys but somebody in the past had dug up the street and uh and destroyed that sewer line uh causing a headache to the homeowner so i understand and I know the dig see dig safe requirements do the best you can to

▶ 30:46 Speaker 1: follow them right okay thank you just one point of information sir is starting operation of heavy equipment or work prior to 730 is violative of the city ordinances yes sir I wish you'd keep that in mind will do anyone else has any

▶ 30:58 Speaker 1: questions the gentleman Alden's work oh thank you mr. president the I know that

▶ 31:03 Michael P. Zwirko: said that this wouldn't commence in the winter but it would be in the spring do you have any ideas to the the ballpark estimate as to when you imagine this project would begin you thinking april

▶ 31:13 Speaker 5: my best guess would be april um like i said it would depend on what crews are available what work we already have going on and what time we can manage it and prior to commencing that work would

▶ 31:21 Michael P. Zwirko: you be notifying the butters of the properties that the work is set to commence or is yes yeah

▶ 31:29 Speaker 5: and how much notice would they would they receive they will receive uh at least 48 hours notice

▶ 31:33 Michael P. Zwirko: prior to any work and i imagine that uh that you've operated as a manager for projects similar to this before correct yeah i'm sorry and the the question i have is is about the duration as well so you have about since you you know you can show up at 7 00 a.m but you really can't do any work till 7 30 that gives you about you know seven eight hours of work per day so how long do you estimate and it's a pretty it's pretty involved project so I'm just thinking from start to finish you know obviously with weather and other conditions what do you think the duration would be for this entire construction I'm gonna I'm

▶ 32:11 Michael P. Zwirko: gonna estimate six to eight weeks six to eight weeks and if we were if the the hours were to be altered to shorten your work period obviously that would extend the duration I mean I'm just I'm very concerned about 730 as a start time if you if you know the area it is used as a cut through especially on commuter commuter hours in the morning and I know that the the memo here has outlined for a traffic management plan which I greatly appreciate but you know it's it's it's it's a residential area that's kind of only to the locals know that it is used as a cut through so there's concerns there and you know the 730 a.m. start time gives me a little bit of concern but if we were to shorten it to like 9 to 3 30 well how would that affect the duration it would extend it

▶ 32:56 Speaker 5: I wouldn't say greatly but it would definitely extend it because when what else is in this is that on every day we have to repave the end of it so we have to make sure that we have paving we are in and everything's paved and complete by 3 30 so that would really shorten our time of by putting in pipe or excavating from the hours of like 9 a.m. to maybe 1230 if that makes sense yeah no no I

▶ 33:17 Michael P. Zwirko: understand because you want to stop early so you can get the paving down yep yeah I just you know with school and this being a neighborhood it's that start time just seems a little early I mean I won't make the motion to amend the hours but I just asked that you know since you've done this before and you have some experience and I know the duration is going to be you know two months max I just asked to be mindful of those and the residents absolutely all right well thank you I appreciate it that's all the questions I had mr.

▶ 33:43 Monica C. Medeiros: president thank you thank you I'm sorry did you say that you had an area designated as a staging area we have not yet I have not worked that out with

▶ 33:51 Monica C. Medeiros: Mr. Cantone. Okay, and so you don't know whether you'd be taking the equipment back and forth

▶ 33:57 Speaker 5: every night or leaving it? We would definitely leave the equipment in the area. We wouldn't be able to take it back. The contractors, their yard's in Dorchester, so it would be nearly

▶ 34:08 Monica C. Medeiros: impossible to remove it every night and bring it back. Okay, and I do have some questions for the city engineer, if that would be appropriate this time. We're under suspension. Could you come

▶ 34:20 Monica C. Medeiros: forward please I'm actually was wondering if you could I see that there is a memo dated today you know and in all honesty I haven't had a chance to to read that yet and I'm sure that maybe there are some members of the public who haven't gotten to read that yet I was wondering if you could go to go over the

▶ 34:40 Speaker 6: proposed conditions that sure okay the first condition I'll just summarize I'm not gonna read verbatim is just that we would meet with National Grid before any of the work starts just to verify the final corridor so sometimes there are utilities once we've marked out our utilities we decide we don't want it you know so close to the water main or so close to the other gas main so that's the first the second is about our winter moratorium so since this work is not emergency work we we're not going to allow it during the winter months the third one is just to follow the dig safe requirements and the markouts with DPW

▶ 35:24 Speaker 6: for existing utilities number four the National Grid has to comply with all the requirements of our street opening permit which is issued through the engineering division number five is just pertaining to restoration of sidewalks and any areas that are disturbed it says roadways too but we'll get to the more significant roadway restoration requirements on the reverse side since

▶ 35:48 Speaker 6: this isn't going to involve service work like most of the National Grid projects do there shouldn't really be any sidewalk impacts or curbing impacts

▶ 36:00 Speaker 6: police details number six police details are required and and those are always scheduled directly between National Grid or their contractor and the police

▶ 36:11 Speaker 6: department saw cutting of the pavement is required prior to excavation and temporary patching as Bobby mentioned they patch every day so our requirement is consistent with that and then the permanent restoration we don't want it any earlier than 30 days because you want to allow time for a little bit of settlement of those trenches and then we have our standard depths under number eight for the pavement patching number nine we are requiring curb to curb restoration along the entire project corridor which is not I would say not our typical um you know it's been done on some streets and not on others i know on ferdinand street last year we required the one foot out from the curb to the curb in this instance woodland robe was paved about a decade ago maybe 12 years but still the neighborhood considers that to be a new road and then warren street national grid actually paid to pave it last year so they're cutting into the brand new road there and then it's just a tiny strip of franklin street and franklin being such a major road and also in good condition we felt that it was appropriate to do curb to curb restoration for the entire project site in the past we have given national grid the option of either bringing in their own paving contractor or paying for the work to be done by the city's contractor as part of our road program would be open to either approach on this um

▶ 37:39 Speaker 6: number 10 is replacement of pavement markings 11 is notifying the residents in writing Bobby mentioned 48 hours notice he's been working on pretty much all the projects this year with National Grid and Devereux their contractor along with our office so we've actually been doing neighborhood meetings with every neighborhood in fact I know a lot of the ward aldermen have been attending the neighborhood meetings that we've had so National Grid's been doing a really good with that and I think it's made a big difference meeting with the neighbors you know anyone who chooses to attend we meet right on a street corner in the neighborhood right after work so at a time when people can come conveniently out of their homes and not have to come down to City Hall and leave kids at home and all that we're requiring two lanes of traffic to be maintained on Franklin Street this is in part due to the fact that we weren't planning on restricting the hours so we wanted to make sure the commuter traffic can get through I will note that at least one resident who's here mentioned to me that sometimes the construction cuts down on the cut through traffic and that's actually a welcome change for the neighborhood I know on Warwick Road where we've been doing work both with the gas company and ourselves with water it's been a benefit to the folks or at least we've been told people like the construction because nobody's cutting through the street anymore and that construction has gone on for such a long duration that maybe some people will have found a new route by the end of construction and maybe they'll stick to their new route we'll see and then we had construction hours at 7 a.m. to 3 30 p.m. I had thought the ordinance had those hours but if that's incorrect

▶ 39:28 Speaker 6: what's that so that's it that's number 13 thank you you love the floor all the

▶ 39:33 Monica C. Medeiros: medeiros thank you very much and i think that hopefully helps uh to to lay that out and know that we probably will be anticipating uh adding this to the to the order officially throughout

▶ 39:51 Speaker 5: this um do we know how how deep you're going with the trenches i will be at a minimum three feet so but it depends on on what's in the ground and what we find when we do our test holes and

▶ 40:00 Monica C. Medeiros: verification laws and is there anything in our uh in our street opening permits that addresses or do we have anything that addresses any damage that might happen to private homeowners yeah that's

▶ 40:11 Speaker 6: that's a typical standard in any of our street opening permits that if something gets disturbed

▶ 40:19 Monica C. Medeiros: it has to be restored in kind and and what's the remedy for for somebody how how would they go

▶ 40:24 Speaker 6: about uh so when national grid distributes the notices they'll actually be getting assuming it's the same process we've had on the other projects they'll be getting three letters all together by mail that explain the project and then one more dropped off at the door for the notification for the neighborhood meeting and those notices have Bobby's number on them they also have Rick cantones office number for engineering so if someone as Bobby says did the neighborhood meetings someone can always talk to the foreman on the site if If they're not comfortable with that, they can call him. If they're not comfortable with that, they can always call engineering and we'll call Bobby or talk to Devereux directly.

▶ 41:07 Monica C. Medeiros: Okay, and have you in the past required that a staging area be set up in advance of the work beginning?

▶ 41:15 Speaker 6: So typically the staging on a project that's this long in total length, the staging might move from place to place. We try to keep it within the right of way. It's oftentimes, I can't remember if there is a grass strip on, I think on most of Woodland Road, there might not be a sidewalk with a grass strip, but it's oftentimes in that vicinity of the right-of-way. We try not to block sidewalks. Sometimes if there are sections where the road widens out, we cone off an area, and things are staged right on the edge of the road. The construction vehicles typically will be in some location in close proximity to the work. pulled over to the side with cones around them a lot of the construction equipment it's they don't have wheels they have tracks so they have to be moved any greater distance they'd have to be moved by a flatbed so try to keep it as close as possible to the work area sometimes the staging ends up being on an immediate side street so we would notify the residents if they're outside the work area so they're not getting all the standard notices we would notify them if we're going to

▶ 42:26 Monica C. Medeiros: put anything in front of their house and will the if you're going to be repaving or at least patching and will the roads be sort of washed down at the end of the day or i know sometimes in the past it can cause a lot of dust and yes so at the end of the at the end of the day that

▶ 42:39 Speaker 5: they will sweep with their uh equipment they have a sweeper on the front they put on their their uh skid steer they'll sweep the roads make sure the dirt's picked up if it is particularly dry then we can use a water truck and we'll wet it down prior to doing it we try to mitigate the dust as much as possible so yes and it'll be patched and paved every night so there will be no open holes no open dirt it'll be left to asphalt and do you take security measures to

▶ 43:07 Monica C. Medeiros: protect the the vehicles and and say kids from getting too close into some of the construction vehicles overnight or somebody you know accidentally you know harming themselves

▶ 43:23 Speaker 5: yes yes all the vehicles are locked at into work they're coned off they're they're barred off as best as possible and all the accessories for the vehicles the buckets the the back ends are all either put down or they're out of out of

▶ 43:44 Speaker 1: harm's way as well thank you thank you very much thank you anyone else i have alderman mcateer margolis alderman Boisselle and then alderman trim and tozy uh thank you mr mr president um

▶ 43:57 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: as um alderman's worker mentioned i'm also a little concerned about the traffic issue i think one of the neighbors mentioned that there are no sidewalks on this on that on woodland on that part part of Woodland? Are you aware, are you familiar with that?

▶ 44:13 Speaker 1: Some parts have no sidewalks. I don't think many

▶ 44:27 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: have, I don't think any have curbs. In any case, if the city engineer could just establish the sidewalk issue and the walking and maybe have a meeting with the traffic officer there so that they can address the pedestrian traffic especially during school time in the mornings and returning at the end of the day and I just wonder if National Grid gave any consideration to doing this project in the summer like when there was no school and I don't know how many children are in the neighborhood that walk it's a pretty close practice you know proximity to the elementary school that kids would be walking back and forth I would think so those would just just be whether or not you would maybe start a little bit later in the season instead of April if you started in June and ran it through the summer you wouldn't have as much issue with you know school pedestrians yes ma'am I

▶ 45:22 Speaker 5: understand your concerns on the the morning and afternoon pedestrian issues all of our all of our work does have a police detail on on-site and they're actually very well at uh verse they they spot the walkers and they they they cone them off and we put a very significant distance in between what works going on and and where people can walk our foremen are very uh aware of that surrounding area as for the summer it's definitely something we look at but we tend to find lots of projects that that are around schools and we try to find the ones that are specifically in front of schools like first street uh this year that we can try to to do while there's no school in session so that would be my only request to the

▶ 46:07 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: through you it would be the the curbing and the sidewalk issue and you know maybe it can be worked out with the neighborhood to address some of those concerns particularly if we have a meeting far enough in advance that people have time to really think about it and consider and if everybody can't get to the meeting then other you know the word of mouth will get around and can email you or i mean we found that to be most helpful in our neighborhood when when you did all the water and sewer work so i'm sure that neighbors would appreciate that yeah and if there are needs

▶ 46:43 Speaker 6: for curbing and sidewalks that aren't there we would probably that's not something we would have national grid contribute but if we're paving anyway and especially if we end up paving with our contractor as part of the road program it is a perfect opportunity to look at what the other needs are and see if we can fund them through chapter 90 or some other funding source great

▶ 47:03 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: and also in terms of the staging if you are using like a side street or an abutting area that isn't necessarily involved in the project obviously you're going to be considerate of of that neighborhood as well and their traffic issues and coning it off and and including them in your

▶ 47:23 Robert A. Boisselle: correspondence beforehand yes ma'am thank you thank you uh just so that the board is aware we have seven minutes before we're going to have to recess this public hearing to start our second public hearing baldman boisel you have the floor thank you uh basically going back to sidewalk issue i mean if if there's no sidewalks there and you're fit and you're after this project you're pretty well finished according to the letter that you hear is the city going to put in the concrete sidewalks with the granite curbs all the way down in this particular area i'm not sure if the road

▶ 47:54 Speaker 6: has the width for it in the areas where there are no sidewalks so we'd have to look at the whole road as part of the road program you know separate from this but so you you will be looking at it we

▶ 48:06 Speaker 6: will look at it you will look at it we can't um guarantee that we'll have funding for it i know other neighborhoods where we've been working this year i know altamont ave for example when we had our neighborhood meeting for the water main project they expressed a strong interest in having sidewalks which would be a major undertaking which we also don't have in our road program right now budget-wise so you know we would we would certainly have to look at it look at the layout see if it would fit see if there's broad neighborhood support um and then i think you have

▶ 48:40 Speaker 6: we have a couple neighbors but you know each street is different and interesting oh yes i understand that what people want once you once you schedule a neighborhood meeting and say we're talking about adding sidewalks you might get a variety of different opinions question to bobby

▶ 48:53 Robert A. Boisselle: here uh this is the insulation of a new pipe or a replacement this is a new pipe sir this is a

▶ 48:59 Speaker 5: new pipeline to to reinforce the existing low pressure system that's in the area to make sure

▶ 49:06 Robert A. Boisselle: it's a reliable system it's going to be any in the concrete structure of any sort or just laying pipe down and that's in sand and so forth uh just just laying pipe into into the sand this is in the sand okay very good and you understand the curb to curb uh requirement yes okay very good thank you thank Thank you, Alderman Tramontozzi.

▶ 49:26 John N. Tramontozzi: Thank you. I think I have the last word, but the city engineer addressed the last question that I had, and that was about the curbs. I think that most of the neighbors do want it. There are areas that don't have concrete curbs, and I think it's something we should look at. If we're going to be digging up the area, we might as well consider putting some down to clean up those streets. Thank you.

▶ 49:50 Speaker 1: Thank you.

▶ 49:51 Monica C. Medeiros: A motion to add the conditions from the city engineer in her memorandum dated December 4th, 2017.

▶ 49:59 Peter D. Mortimer: Second. A motion to amend.

▶ 50:01 Speaker 1: Alderman Medeiros moves to amend the order to include the memorandum with the conditions from the city engineer. A motion is seconded by Alderman Mortimer. Is there discussion relative to the motion? All those in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Motion passes. The order as amended is before you.

▶ 50:23 Speaker 1: motion to recommend second motion to recommend the order duly made and

▶ 50:33 Speaker 2: seconded miss O'Shea could you call the roll please yes yes yes yes yes yes yes Oliver McIntyre my goal is yes yes Oliver Madeiras yes yes Oliver Mortimer yes yes Oliver Tramontozzi yes yes Oliver Zwirko yes yes president Kahn yes yes yes

▶ 50:51 Speaker 1: that order passes we have a second order for public hearing this evening 2018-45 petition of national grid to install up to 540 feet of four inch plastic low pressure main off of the existing six inch bear street low pressure main on forest street down the proposed dead end development on blueberry hill lane as shown on a plan gp mel 1188167-17258 dated 8 1 2017.