ClearSource Exceeds

Sewer Allocation

By M. D. Drysdale

ClearSource, Inc., the water bottling plant on Route 66 in Randolph, has been greatly exceeding its permitted volume of discharges into the municipal sewage system and should pay the town $89,000 for an updated sewage allocation, the selectboard was told Tuesday evening.

The board heard a report from Steve Springer, who chairs the Water & Sewer Committee.

He said that when the plant was originally built in the 1990s, it had paid for an allocation to permit discharge of 3850 gallons into the sewage line, which runs up Route 66 from the village.

Since that time, expansion at the plant, especially in the last two years, has meant that the plant is probably discharging about 20,000 gallons into the sewer line.

Most of the water is used in washing bottles. ClearSource has greatly increased its production since it bought the former Vermont Pure plant in 2004. It now has three production lines running 24/7 and it also makes its own bottles.

It was noted that the company has been trying to use less water and has converted at least one of the production lines to a "de-ionized" cleaning system that doesn't use water.

Nevertheless, figures supplied by the company show a rapid escalation of the volume of water flowing into the plant, reaching 21,692 gallons one day in October.

ClearSource's Jim Morgan pointed out that he has no way currently of monitoring the actual discharge of water, just the amount of water coming into the plant's processing equipment.

He asked for "a couple of weeks" to make his response and said he was "quite surprised at the figure"—presumably both the water use figure and the dollar figure the Town was asking him to pay.

The board was agreeable and tabled the item until Nov. 28. Morgan was reminded by Board Chair Jim Hutchinson that "our system has a limited capacity." In fact the pump station at the bottom of the hill has been a big worry for the water system over the last couple of years.

Other Water/Sewer

Kevin Doering was given an extension to June 15 to put in place a new way of disposing of water which must be pumped from his Randolph Center home.

Currently the water is being pumped into the same Randolph Center sewage line, which is "a no-no," said Steve Springer, W&S Committee Chair.

Springer's committee also recommended against two requests from JD Properties, Inc., which owns the former Ethan Allen plant on Hull Street.

Creating a closed "loop" in the water system was one request, which Public Works Supt. Joe Voci said would be too expensive. Currently water goes to the JD Properties site from two directions.

The committee also recommended against giving credit towards high water bills that resulted from leaks in old urinals. That's "an internal maintenance issue," said Voci.

Churches Agree

The Green Mountain Gospel Chapel and Sts. Donatian and Rogatian Church have agreed to share a sewer access near the Hebard Hill Road, Springer told the board.

The Catholic church, which hopes to build on the west side of the road next year, will use one of the three manholes that were originally built for the Gospel Chapel.

Selectman Larry Townsend complimented Voci for his negotiation of the sometimes tricky agreement.