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MINUTES April 12, 2001 3 BOARD OF HEALTH lot less headaches with them coming back later asking why they have to continue with it." "Whatever the permit says for testing, depending on what they are, they can back off on the testing when they submit a letter to DEP asking to reduce it after showing a good track record." "Many times they will allow that." "They cannot vary from the testing requirements without a letter from DEP." Mr. Doherty stated, "We've always made it clear that we expect a maintenance contract. I think where the problem is is that the engineers are the ones that are coming before us, not the actual system owner. Very infrequently do we see a system owner before us." Mr. Heufelder continued, "This is what I'd like to suggest the Board do: when the Board approves the technology, that they issue a letter to the owner saying that we approve this system in this town and that the conditions of monitoring, and of the maintenance contract be clearly stated in there. That constitutes notification on your behalf to the owners so they can't come back and say that they didn't know about this." Ms. Warden stated, "One of the problems we are running into is that the Conservation Commission is requiring denitrification units so its hard for us to enforce it because they have nothing in their regulation that states monitoring requirement." Mr. Heufelder responded, "That was the second most common permitting issue. When a Conservation Commission says to someone that they must put a denitrification unit in, there is no monitoring requirement for nitrogen under their general use approval because they do not have a general use approval for nitrogen removal. They have a general use approval, which means you can put one in with very minimal monitoring, but none of it is nitrogen. The difference is that there are only two systems approved in the state for general use for nitrogen reduction. That is the Ruck system and a recirculating sand filter." "What I would recommend to you is that in the instance of general use, you require some monitoring." Mr. Heufelder finished up by stating that any time the Board has the opportunity to require a cluster system for small areas of town. These systems that service 10-200 houses are a lot more efficient at removing nitrogen than individual on-site systems. The best individual on-site system at Otis right now, under testing, is 70% removal. It's a highly managed type of system, very expensive. You can get up to 90% nitrogen removal when you start combining more than one house because of the flows. When you get a single house the flow is not stable. These biological systems have trouble readjusting. When you can average 50 houses together, the flows are more balanced. I would urge any influence the Board has as those decisions come to light to require these cluster systems." APPOINTMENT: Brian Kelleher re: house addition at 37 Nick Trail Mr. & Mrs. Brian Kelleher were in attendance for this scheduled appointment. Mr. Kelleher presented the Board with plans and photographs of his home at 37 Nick Trail. He is requesting permission from the Board to convert the existing garage into a