Board Recommends Zoning Change for Water Treatment Facility
By Cynthia Drummond for BRVCA
March 27th 2024
RICHMOND – The Planning Board voted at its Tuesday meeting to issue a favorable advisory opinion on amendments to the zoning ordinance and future land use map to allow the installation of a drinking water treatment facility.
There are 294 customers on the water system. The town signed a consent agreement in 2020 with the Rhode Island Department of Health Center for Drinking Water Quality that includes a provision for monitoring drinking water for coliform and E coli. Coliform has been detected in the system and is still present, making an additional level of treatment necessary.
After determining that disinfecting the groundwater would be the preferred additional treatment, the town chose the “4-log” system, that kills 99.99% of viruses. The consulting engineer on the project is Northeast Water Solutions Inc., and C&E Engineering is the design engineer. Northeast Water Solutions is the town's current water service provider, replacing LaFramboise Water Services, the town's former water company. The contract to install the new treatment system has not yet been awarded.
Back in 2021, at the Financial Town Meeting, voters approved a $300,000 bond for water system improvements. The Town Council, at the March 5, 2024 meeting, approved a capital improvement charge of $80 per year, or $20 per quarter per customer, to pay back the bond.
Why the Zoning Amendment is Necessary
The 29-acre parcel where the water treatment facility would be built is vacant, “vegetated” land, with limited frontage on KG Ranch Road.
Town Planner Talia Jalette told the board that the proposed 4-log system, which uses chlorine and other chemicals to kill viruses, had to be installed close to the existing water system, which is nearby.
“It needs to be at this specific location,” she said. “There has to be a certain amount of communication between this proposed system and the existing system, because there has to be some kind of way to basically monitor how much chlorine and whatever other chemicals are going into the water to clean it.”
In a written report to the board, Jalette included a description of the 4-log system, by Northeast Water Solutions.
“…the system consists of three main parts; the injection of sodium hypochlorite [NaOCI] into the existing water distribution system within the existing pumphouse and backup vault on Plat 3B, Lot 101, an appropriate length of distribution main to allow for chlorine contact time, and the construction of a chlorine monitoring station which continuously monitors the concentration of chlorine in the water supply,” Northeast’s explanation states. “The chlorine monitoring station is a critical component because this system alerts the certified drinking water operator if the concentration of chlorine is too high or too low.”
Northeast Water Solutions also stated that the monitoring station “must be in the exact location proposed by the design engineer in order to allow for proper contact time between the chlorine injection point and the monitor point.”
After being contacted in Feb. 2024 by a Northeast Water Solutions engineer about permitting for the project, Jalette discovered that the property was zoned Conservation and Open Space, where horticulture is the only currently permitted use, and would therefore need to be re-zoned, from “Conservation and Open space” to “Public and Governmental.”
In addition to the zoning change, the Future Land Use Map Use map in the Comprehensive Plan would have to be amended.
Jalette noted that the Public and Governmental designation would be appropriate for the parcel.
“This is a governmental function,” she said. “It’s run through the Finance Department itself, and then it’s actually maintained by Northeast Water Solutions, but it is a function of the government.”
Some board members voiced concerns about re-zoning a single parcel.
Vice Chair Dan Madnick asked why just one of four adjacent plats was being re-zoned.
“We’re being asked to re-zone one plat, but there’s multiple plats here …,” he said. “Why are we not just re-zoning all of them? What’s the point of having a conservation – zoned space in this water system, anyway? I almost feel like we should make all of them the same zone so it’s consistent. There’s four plats here.”
Jalette said she was not aware of a reason why all four plats couldn’t be re-zoned, but added that she had not researched the other parcels.
“Generally speaking, I don’t think that there would be much of a hazard of re-zoning those. I would just say that, like I said, I haven’t done the research on the adjacent parcels like I did on this,” she said.
Board Chair Philip Damicis said he had reservations about amending the zoning.
“I would have preferred to have maintained the conservation restrictions on the property because it is 29 acres, and like I said, I don’t want to set a precedent for ‘yeah it’s 30 acres, we’re going to put this whatever that’s necessary and re-zone it,’ then we’ve lost all restrictions on that property.”
Member Peter Burton made a motion to send the proposed changes to a public hearing. Before the board’s unanimous approval, Madnick said he wanted to have a representative from Northeast Water Solutions present at the hearing to answer questions, and the other members agreed.