Dean Smith's Planning Board FAILS to provide citizen's wells protection!

Dean Smith passes permit that FAILS to provide adequate protection to residential wells around the Song Mountain well. It is now up to the ZBA to add these required protections for the residential wells or Song Mountain's future will be in doubt!

The Song Lake Property Owners Association, comprised of more than 120 homeowners is firmly behind efforts to protect our lake, and our wells. While we are in favor of Song Mountain's continued success and survival we will NOT under ANY circumstances allow a situation where any of our wells or our lake are put in jeopardy just to guarantee Songs success. If it comes to losing our wells or Song going out of business then it is Song that will cease to exist. If Dan O'Shey and the ZBA do not provide the protection we require then it will be the fault of the town and not ours when Song Mountain goes...

OUT OF BUSINESS

I hope that Dan and the town board are listening. Dean Smith, chair of the planning board chose to laugh at and ignore us and that was a huge mistake. I don't know why Smith was so eager to cut Song so much slack. After all they don't pay any taxes and only have one employee from Preble. Perhaps he has another reason that we don't know about.

The following list is what we require and demand to be added to the permit for Song Mountain's use of the well.

1. The permit for the well should note that it is for backup purposes only.
2. Monitoring equipment available to any Preble resident or surrogate at any time during normal business hours that the mountain is open.
3. Monitoring on a daily basis when the well is in use.
4. Copy of the well's NiMo bill and all monitoring reports sent to the town hall for public view each month that the well is used. Town clerk will keep these records as part of the town's permanent records and make them available to citizens.
5. Song's potable (drinking) well pump raised as per USGS's Bill Kappel's recommendation so that Songs potable well will be the first to fail if they over use their big well. Access to the potable well at any time to verify that this has been done and has not been altered.
6. Well calibration needs to be done when water is at it's lowest. Jan/Feb.
7. All impacted wells property owners need to be notified and included in this process and records need to be shared with home owners and county health dept. for Songs drinking well
8. 90 percent recovery needs to be met between well withdrawals. We need to have an independent source watching. 90 percent from original depth line or else you have a step down effect and every time you start up you are closer to the cut off but without clear wording. Song would be just moving the 2 foot safety margin and you could draw wells down
9. We have to have the shut off process clearly defined for the big well. Currently it is not done at all. We have to define who is called. When are they called and the conditions needed and who turns it back on.
10. The monitoring has to continue for 10 years as outlined by the USGS and not just the 3 years required by the SRBC The SRBC is going to make money on this while the USGS will not. Also the USGS has a local office while the SRBC is in Pa. Bill Kappel of the USGS says we need 10 years to get a handle on the long term impact, if any. I trust the USGS far more than the SRBC

Some further notes about Dean Smith's inadequate work.

• Smith allowed an inaccurate Site plan to be approved without the accurate location of the pipeline or the ownership of the land the pipeline is on. No agreement with the landowners the pipeline is actually on or if it can stay or has to be rerouted. This is not something Smith would allow an average citizen like you or me to get away with.
• Smith allowed the monitoring to be done by Song with no oversight. Only the SRBC who are the ones selling them our water. Over use is clearly stated as a fine only offence by the SRBC. AFTER the SRBC reviews the yearly data. Completely inadequate!
• Smith removed the requirement to reclaim the snow tube park with the absurd claim that nature has taken care of it. Procrastination pays in Smith's world.
• Smith did not define what quarterly means in terms of the start date.

While these protections we require may have some small cost for Song Mountain, that cost will be far less than the cost of not doing them. In business we have a phrase, "The cost of doing business". These protections are the cost of doing business for Song Mountain to use our water. It is not the concern of the town or the ZBA what costs Song Mountain has to incur to protect us. If they don't want to pay these costs, don't use our water.

As you can see these are very reasonable requirements that are not difficult to implement. Only Dean Smith can tell you why he chose to ignore them and us.

I am NOT telling the ZBA or the town what to do.

I AM telling the ZBA and the town what we will HAVE to do if these very simple protections are not put in place.

At the first sign of trouble, the first time someone has a problem with their well or at the first sign of a threat to our lake then Song Mountain will go out of business. You can think we are full of it, you can think we can't do it. That is your decision. You will do what you want to do and we will do what we HAVE to do. Ignore us at your peril!

The decision is yours!

Frank Hogg
5/1/02

PS: After all these years dealing with this, it is amazing to me that Dean Smith, the chair of the planning board, doesn't have a clue about this subject and acts as if it wasn't important. His attitude towards us is condescending and irradiating. He has the audacity to laugh at citizens when they express their concerns. He is a fools fool. He is the one who should have taken the time to learn about this subject or step down as chair. It is obvious he chose to ignore the new information from the USGS and it is also painfully obvious he is incapable of understanding that information. I have lost what little respect I had for Dean Smith and now see him just as a puppet for the town board. Apparently they wanted someone who would do their bidding without asking too many questions or for that matter knowing there were questions to ask or what those questions might be.

(I have a story about Dean Smith and the disparate way he treats certain people who have the misfortune to come before him. For many years I have watched him and taken notes. For once Anne Brennan was right about what she said about him. Dean Smith's story has to come out. You will be shocked and amazed when you read it.)