10/16/1989 BOARD OF HEALTH Minutes

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BOARD OF HEALTH - EMERGENCY MEETING OCTOBER 16, 1989 t Members present: George Costa, Stephen Greetish and John Doherty. i THE TAPE 1S NOT PART OF THE MEETING. IT IS FOR THE PURPOSE OF TRANSCRIBING MINUTES Mr. George Costa, Chairman. This meeting was called in order for Mike sCipione of Weston and Sampson Engineering to brief the Board on the engineer' s recommendation as to hew to proceed with the problem of the lead content at the Coombs school , prior to the scheduled meeting with the Selectmen at 7:45 pm. - . The Chairman Called the moeting ,to rdr' at :4 pm, ' Cth' rs in attendance were:, Doug storr } f Field.' s Point, DaveRich of High Wood Water, Bill Jones of the later D i i C - and Dav i d Burke of l F i l d' s Point. Mr. SCipione started that since.their last meeting .with the Board, his company has investigated whether ;thorn are a�n ""hot, pet s i" Causing the lead problem.,, whether further res ar h "i nt the 1 umb'i ng wouldyield 'i of rmat i n s '.to the f i t r�es and solder and whether the r ater i a'l ".used 'were the ""1 e-ad±free" type all owed-bar code. We were further asked to look into the raw water source and the Cost of a Corrosion control system at the school . We were also hoping to get the sampling data of the new church to help us in our investigation. since we did not have the information on the water source, we postponed our scheduled meeting of last Wednesday until tonight. since then we -have rec i evod information n, the corrosivity of the incoming water both from High Wood and from Env i rote h which performed a second corrosivity test on the water. The results on the Langlior index were -4.5 and - *4. This water is considered "highly- corrosive". High Wood Dater Co. indicated to Mike that they intend to initiate an anti corrosion control pregrarn when their booster pump station is Complete, in about six months. We have looked into what it would Cost to install an anti Corrosion device for the school itself This would be about $13,500, Based on the Corrosisvity test results, Mr. Scipione stated that he beleivos the main problem is the corrosion of the "1 d=free" fixtures and fittings. As stated at our last meeting from our research everything done by the contractor appears to -be according to code. Based on our further-research, with articles supplied by the Board of Health staff, it appears that new "lead-free" fixtures tend to release more lead, copper and zinc than older ones. At Elias' request we have put together an interim flusshing program in the hopes that the water in the school Can be turned on when after flushing the lead content is below 50ppb as has been the case in the latest round of testing. This would further indicate that the lead is being dis- charged by the fixture erxy close to the tap. He Continued by reading off the flushing/sampling - schedule which he proposes and which is attached to these minutes) . The 4pm sampling will indicate whether even if certain bubblers or other water outlets are not used for a period of C hours, the lead levels r uld still be below the MCL. Assuming the resi j is of the -analysis performed by BCHED indicate that the flushing' pr gram results in levels below Cppb, , we would recommend that the water Continue to be flushed daily and opening up the bubblers and kitchen sinks for consumption. According to our research it may take from one month to six or nine months for the system to age sufficiently to Coat the pipes and fixtures sufficiently to step the leaching f lead from the fixtures into the water. Mr. Costae questioned what type of water treatment on a temporary basis would he recommend, since the flushing ma.y have to go on for a long time. Mr. S ipione stated that it would be a Cal ionite type filter, with limestone picking up Calcium carbonate. The water would then go through the pipes and add al- kalinity. This would change the Langlierx index to a slightly positive number,