[Speaker 8] (0:01 - 1:45)
Thank you guys all for coming. I know that this is really stressful for a lot of people in the neighborhood because of the unknowns, but we have a great team here tonight that's gonna talk you through the blasting process and the pre-blasting survey, so you'll have a lot of information by the time you leave here. I'm Suzanne Wright, I'm the chair of the School Building Committee, and we have a great team here.

We have our OPMs, our Owner Project Managers, sitting on the end there. Trevor in the pink shirt will will probably be on site most days, yes? Yes, some days.

And then two down is Fred. He's gonna be on the site every day. And then Paul Callas and Andy, the two men on either side, are also our Owner Project Managers, and they are gonna be responsible for the stuff behind the scenes, mostly.

And then Jared and Doug are also gonna be on site most of the time. They both work with CTA, that's our construction team, and Doug will be on the site every day, right? And then these three gentlemen here are all with Menino Construction or their subcontractors to do the pre-blast survey and the blasting expert.

So hopefully by the time you leave here you'll have a good understanding of what's gonna happen and you all take a form with you to sign up for a pre-blast survey if you would like to. We're gonna do the presentation and then we're gonna have questions at the end. When you speak just come down to the microphone because this presentation is being recorded so that other people can watch it as well.

So with that, Andy.

[Speaker 2] (1:47 - 3:32)
Thank you, thank you, Suzanne. I just want to quickly provide a quick update on the project. So back in the summer we did an early package, which is the demolition of the abatement of the existing Stanley School, and that happened in the summer and we finished the demolition and the abatement as of October of this year.

And we went out to bid in September for the main building project and CTA is the award general contractor. So tonight on the agenda we're gonna be, you know, introducing to the team as Suzanne did. We're gonna be talking about site logistic, truck route, and then mostly talk about the blasting procedure as required by the ERAC permit.

I know we in the past heard a lot of concern about blasting, so we want to open it up for question at the end and talk about the procedure to fill out the pre-blast survey. We're gonna dive into detail on that. And then we'll be talking about the pest management, erosion control, dust control, and the hour of operation.

So our point is trying to work, you know, together, especially try to minimize the impact to the community as much as possible as we're building the building. So I'll turn it over to, you know, if we can go to the next slide, I'll turn it over to CTA. We did the introduction already, so why don't we turn it over to Manino to share your credential and experience.

Sure.

[Speaker 3] (3:32 - 6:31)
So Nick Manino. I'm a Swampscot resident, and I was trying to get the timeline straight, but I think it was about 15 years ago I sat on your side of the table and was on the building committee for this high school, and a lot of the same concerns that you folks will have with the new elementary school we dealt with 15 years ago here. And although, again, I sat on the building committee, I didn't do the work, but Pete McNamara from Explosive Technology did all of the blasting here for the general contractor who self-performed this site work.

Dave Falvey is directly next to me. Dave from Falvey Associates has been doing our pre-blast survey work for forever, has done hundreds and hundreds of surveys for us. Pete and I have worked together for the last 25 years, and you know, probably the best description of kind of the success that we've had and the team that we've put together some of the projects we've done besides, you know, Pete doing this work for the high school.

The Hanover Apartments across from Whole Foods was a massive site that had two or three times the amount of ledge that we're expecting from the new school. The assisted living facility that's next to the Marshalls right in Vennon Square, we did the blasting there with Pete. Again, another job, and again, much, much more, you know, three or four times the amount of ledge than what we're expecting here.

More recently, White Court, the old Marion Court College we did together, probably around the same amount of ledge. And just outside of the limits in Salem, out behind Shaw's and Home Depot, we just completed Trader's Way, and that was ten times the amount of ledge that we expect here. So, and again, lots of homes and condos and traffic around us, so we're, we have a good system, we're very comfortable with it, we're very familiar with it, and it's a team that I'm proud to have pulled together and we've worked together for a long time.

So with that introduction, I'll turn it over to probably Dave and describe the pre-blast surveys that we want to get started right away, and Dave can explain what he does, what to expect, and then maybe move on to Pete, and he can explain what he does a little bit, and then I would recommend opening it up for question and answer. That's, I'm sure you have lots of questions for us, so thank you very much, great to be here.

[Speaker 5] (6:32 - 8:08)
Thank you, Nick. Dave Falvey, Falvey Associates. I do the pre-blast inspections for many construction projects and blasting projects.

I have 27 and a half years of experience in doing this, and you may wonder what's a pre-blast survey consists of. I would come into your home and I would document room by room the condition of the walls, ceilings, floors. How I do that is I walk through, I talk into a camera, and I use a high-powered light to illuminate the areas.

Some people will want me to do the entire house, some people might say just do the basement, some might just say do the exterior. Whatever you feel comfortable with, I would do. You don't have to be concerned about the data getting into anybody's hands because I keep it secure.

It doesn't go into the cloud, it stays on my own hard drives. I'm a one-man operation, so I have no employees to tamper with anything. I can assure you the data is safe.

I've done many large-scale projects for schools. Recent project was the Waltham High School project. We had over 200 surveys on that project alone, so basically that's what the pre-blast survey is.

I would come in, and you don't have to be concerned about, you know, having an untidy house, things blocking the walls, there's nothing you have to move, there's no work on your part. I just come in, I merely document what I see. Excuse me?

[Speaker 15] (8:08 - 8:11)
When you say you document, are you saying you take a video?

[Speaker 9] (8:11 - 8:34)
We're going to save questions until the end of this presentation. So, if we can just follow the agenda here, and the next section is the site logistics and truck route, and then we'll circle back to the pre-blast surveys. Sure.

Sure.

[Speaker 4] (8:34 - 11:15)
Hi, Jared Smith, CTA Construction, Project Manager. Right now we're in the process of mobilizing to the site, started bringing in trailers, getting prepared to commence the... Sorry, hear me now?

Can you hear me now? So we're in the process of mobilizing to the site, getting ready to start our pre-blast survey work. In the next couple days, people should start seeing notifications in the mail for the pre-blast survey.

Those will get sent back in, and Menino's team will schedule pre-blast surveys with everybody. Once those are completed, and we start going through during the survey process, once that's done, we'll start the earthwork, earth-moving operations of the project, leading up to the blasting work. After that, we'll get into foundation work, and then into structural steel, and the construction of the rest of the project.

Obviously, getting this work moving forward is critical to the overall schedule and success of the project, so the quicker we can get through this process, the better chance we all have of succeeding with the project. Doug Morrow is sitting next to me. He's the site superintendent.

He'll be onsite every day, monitoring the work, scheduling the work, making sure everything is installed per plans and specs, and working to coordinate with the community, including making sure that the subcontractors going in and out of the neighborhood are following the truck routes that are outlined in the contract documents. Can you go to the next slide, please? We have the truck route, so trucks entering and leaving the site will follow the routes outlined in red.

That's all been distributed to our subcontractors, and it will be a topic of discussion at our weekly subcontractor coordination meetings. It's information we send out to them with their contracts, so we're going to work to make sure that everybody adheres to the traffic plans outlined in the plans. Next slide.

Actually, go back one. There you go. Do you want to talk to me?

[Speaker 6] (11:16 - 13:15)
Yeah, this is Doug Morrow, superintendent. This will be our enabling plan, rather, how we're going to start the site. We'll basically set up the trailers, set up the rock-crushing areas.

The blasting areas are all designated, and we're going to try and follow the sequence that we have here, unless we run into something unusual. But basically, we'll be starting in the area of A building section and moving to B and then to C. So that should be our sequence in terms of getting the building ready for foundations.

The rock-crusher will be moving around according to its need, but we're also going to try to buffer the noise with materials, and I'm sure Nick is going to try to support us on that. We understand that it could be noisy, but we're also going to try to muffle the sound somehow, so we're going to do the best we can on that. But going back to the blasting, the reason that all the blasting material is going to get recycled and used, so whatever comes out of this site hopefully goes back in the site as a good fill material.

So it is necessary to basically reuse that product. Based on the hours and stuff that we're looking at, we're looking at 7 to 5 on a 5-day week. We'll probably work on a Saturday as well, and I think we have to ask permission for a Saturday, but we'll check that out with the local building authority.

[Speaker 9] (13:18 - 13:19)
7 to 4, okay.

[Speaker 6] (13:22 - 14:33)
Sorry. Basically, the gate will come off of the main street, and all the arteries that come off of that main street we're going to monitor in terms of all the truck routing and how basically the equipment gets into the site and leaves the site. We're going to park on the site, and hopefully we don't have to do any off-road parking, but at this point we're going to try to maintain all the workers and such within the fence of the site.

So that's our goal, to minimize the impact to the neighborhood. We all understand that it takes a lot to build a building of this size, and we're going to work diligently to keep everybody in the neighborhood happy. Any complaints, bring them to Hill, and they'll convey that to us, but we're trying to mitigate any problems within the community.

[Speaker 9] (14:33 - 14:35)
We have a second gate.

[Speaker 1] (14:46 - 18:24)
Okay. So discussion of blasting. My name is Pete McNamara.

I'm with Explosive Technology. As Nick's already said, we've done a lot of projects in this area, very similar projects, larger projects. So let me just run through sort of our process with the drilling and blasting, which will occur after the pre-blast surveys have been completed.

Some of the drilling will occur before the surveys are done, because it has nothing to do with pre-blast surveys. Just to continue on with the project, move the time frame up as quickly as we can, we'll do a little bit of drilling before the surveys are completed, but no blasting will happen until after that point. We have to get a permit from the fire department, and as former Chief Breen knows well, we have all the qualifications to get that, ATF permits and state fire measure permits and blasting licenses, bonds and insurance and everything else.

So once we have the permit from the fire department and we begin blasting, what we'll do is we'll be drilling holes called bore holes in which to load explosives into. We go out there with a qualified team of explosives experts, and we load the holes. We cover each blast with very heavy rubber tire blasting mats, they're called, and that controls any fly rock or anything like that.

We'll have seismographs set up. We're required by law to have a seismograph set up at the closest structure, not owned by the project or not in control of the project. This actually calls for four seismographs to be set up, which we'll be doing.

In the neighborhood, a few seismographs at the closest structures, and then a few more at just various structures where we deem necessary. So we'll be monitoring. Once the—and there will be a fire detail out there, so a representative of the Swampskid Fire Department will be there the whole time while we're loading holes and blasting.

So once the blast is ready to be initiated after it's been matted, we secure the area. We'll have plenty of personnel on site. A lot of times we'll end up using some of Menino's employees to help us secure the area, whatever we have to do to make sure there's no one near the blast site or in the blast zone when we detonate the shot.

You'll hear some horns. We'll be doing five minutes before the blast, and you'll see some signage to that effect on site. Five minutes before the blast, you'll hear three long horns, and then one minute before the blast, you'll hear two shorter horns.

We initiate the blast, and then one all clear at the end. We use an air horn off of our drills for those whistle signals. It's very loud.

It won't be heard by every neighbor every time. There's no doubt about that. I can tell you that from experience with winds direction and houses that are in the way of other homes and things like that and just trees and that type of thing.

But I can rest assured it will be used for every shot like it's supposed to be. The fire department, like I said, will be on site making sure that that happens. So we initiate the blast, and then we'll go around with the fire department and check our readings on those four seismographs, make sure that we're well within the state limits and the limits on this project, and then continue again with the drilling and blasting.

So we try and do a very structured, sequenced chain of events so that everything's the same all the time, and we work our way through the project. So that is essentially the blasting portion.

[Speaker 2] (18:26 - 18:41)
Can we go over the pre-blast survey portion of it? Let's talk about it in more detail. What would you guys be doing when you send out somebody to do the actual survey?

[Speaker 5] (18:41 - 20:21)
Yes. I will be the one doing the actual survey. I'll be the only one that would come to your home.

What I do when I come, I would start on the interior, go room to room, and what I'm looking for is any imperfections on the walls and ceilings. If you have cracks, any water damage, things of that nature, I will record where they are located, and that's what the survey consists of. With the pre-blast survey, I think it's in your best interest to have it done because when the blasting begins, you're going to feel vibration, and that's when people have a tendency to look around after the fact.

They look up at their walls and ceilings, and they look at cracks, and they assume that the blasting did it. This way, if I come through, I do a baseline inspection. You get the gist of what your home looks like.

We put it on record. If you have a concern later on after the blasting's done, we would go back to the video and take a look at it and see if what you're talking about exists on the video. When I go through a home, will I see every little crack in your home?

No. I will get the gist of the room, the walls, if they have cracks here and there. If they're clear and obvious, I will definitely see them.

If there's something that's hidden below a window with furniture in front of it and you move the furniture later on, there's no way I would be able to determine that that crack was there. But if your home has a lot of cracks to begin with, when they start blasting, you might say, oh, they're cracking it more. I'll come through, and I'll just, like I said, videotape with a high-powered light, see what it looks like, and we'll put it on record for you.

[Speaker 2] (20:24 - 20:52)
So can you go into more detail? How do a neighbor sign up to get the survey? We have some application here tonight with us.

The first notice will come out to the abutter within 300 feet, starting right now to the 10th, and that's why we have some application here tonight. If you're interested, you can start filling out tonight.

[Speaker 5] (20:53 - 21:20)
If anybody's interested, they can fill that out. Give me your information right here tonight, and I can schedule an inspection for you. If you're within that range of the 300 to 500-foot radius...

We have a list. I'll get that list. Well, they take the location of the blast, and they do an abutters list for 300 to 500-foot radius from the blast area.

[Speaker 1] (21:25 - 21:36)
Actually, state law is 250 feet. That's what's in CMR 13-0 is 250 feet, and that is written as from borehole, whatever the closest borehole to the structure.

[Speaker 2] (21:39 - 24:31)
So according to this ERAC permit that was approved by the town, if we can go to the slide. So we have the perimeter here. So within 300 feet, we have 44 partial, and within 500 feet, we have about 105 partial on this map that NITS Engineering did a survey.

If you can see the cayenne color, those are within the 300 feet, and the 500 feet is the purple partial. We also have from 500 to 1,000 feet according to the ERAC permit, it's going to be revealed case-by-case by the town. So anybody from 500 to 1,000 feet radius, if you're interested, send the application to the town, and then it will be revealed case-by-case.

So I just want to be clear that we have to follow the schedule. So we're trying to get the first notice out between now and the 10th, that the first notice will come out. Second notice will be sent on December 10th.

The week of December 12th. And the third notice will be sent on the week of the 19th of December. We have a deadline to try to get everything, everybody sign up by December 28th of this year, of December.

Also, we're going to send out the application. It's also going to be available electronic as well. And also, I have the contact for David Falvey, and his phone number is right there on the screen, 508-328-8789.

And his email address is dfalvey50 at yahoo.com. And we're going to have that available on the project website as well. So next, I'm going to turn it over to CTA to discuss about the pest management.

[Speaker 4] (24:32 - 25:08)
Sure. So we currently have a pest management plan that we are going to be implementing with pest control devices around the perimeter of the site. And those will be checked and maintained regularly by the pest control subcontractor.

Those reports will be submitted to the town. So we'll be following the integrated pest management plan that's laid out in the project specifications.

[Speaker 2] (25:11 - 25:46)
Okay. Next is the discussion on the erosion control. Also, right now, we do have erosion control in place at the site done by JR Vinagro, and that is being turned over to Menino Construction.

So what's happening is they're going to be maintaining that throughout the project. And anything you want to talk about on the erosion control? Sure.

[Speaker 3] (25:47 - 27:08)
So the erosion control is in place. It was installed properly. We've already walked the perimeter of the site and inspected every bit of it.

It's our obligation throughout the site to maintain that erosion control and to do a perimeter walk any time there's any rain event. More than a half inch of rain is kind of a special event where we have to document the condition of the erosion control and anywhere it needs to be reinforced, replaced, added to, we do that to make sure that everything on the site stays on the site. What I will say is this site is fairly flat compared to a lot of sites that we develop.

The sites I mentioned before, certainly Hanover Apartments across from Whole Foods, the assisted living facility next to Marshalls, Marion Court College, those sites were very hilly and much more difficult to handle the erosion control, and those were all successful sites. So I'm confident that from an erosion control standpoint, we will achieve our goals at this site.

[Speaker 2] (27:10 - 27:25)
So next we have dust monitoring. So similar to during the demolition, we're going to continue on with the dust monitoring. I'll turn it over to CTA to talk about dust monitoring during the construction.

[Speaker 4] (27:26 - 28:34)
Throughout the construction project, we're going to make sure we're doing everything possible to keep airborne dust from the construction site down to a minimum. That will include spraying the site with a water truck depending on the specific site activity. Certain areas may be sprayed down with water before or during certain work to minimize the amount of dust that may be put up into the air.

The street will be maintained for dust as needed. The site entrances will have tracking pads to minimize any dirt or debris that gets onto the road, but on a fairly regular basis or as needed, the street will be cleaned to prevent any dirt or debris from being tracked further down the street.

[Speaker 2] (28:36 - 28:45)
Thank you. So next we have the hour of operation. I'll turn it over to Trevor from Hill who will be on site as well to discuss the hour of operation.

[Speaker 9] (28:51 - 28:57)
We do have a question section at the end if you don't mind just waiting until the end. Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (28:57 - 28:58)
Just two more slides.

[Speaker 9] (28:59 - 30:05)
Appreciate it. The hours of operation are 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Unless another time is needed to complete the operation.

Saturdays won't be a regular event unless, you know, schedule becomes an issue. No work shall take place on Sundays and holidays without written authorization from the director of the community development after consultation with the ERAC committee. Blasting particularly will be conducted between 9 a.m. and 3.30 p.m. unless a later time is authorized by the fire department. No blasting shall take place on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays without written authorization from the director of community development after consultation with the ERAC committee. The work hours for crushing operations will be limited Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. And the Saturday work is something that will be a lot more limited and, you know, case-by-case basis.

[Speaker 10] (30:10 - 30:26)
Trevor, I just wanted to point out that these are the hours of operation pursuant to the earth removal permit. Yes. And so when we are through the site work phase of the project, the hours of operation are dictated by different things than this.

So I just wanted to make that clear.

[Speaker 9] (30:28 - 30:28)
Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (30:31 - 30:44)
So the last slide here, I have the OPM's contact here, which is from Hill. I'll turn it over to Fresh Rebelli. He's going to be our full-time representative.

If you have a few words that you want to add.

[Speaker 16] (30:45 - 31:19)
Yeah, thanks, Andy. Yes, I'll be on site, and I'll have my phone on 24 hours a day. You can call me if there's issues during the night.

We'll try to resolve everything, have everybody on the same page, and this will work out. I'm familiar with CTA. I work with them on a few schools, and I know their systems.

I know Doug real well. I work with him outside of CTA. So you have a real good team here, and you'll like what you're seeing in the end.

And your property values are going to go way up, too, once they're done.

[Speaker 2] (31:23 - 31:30)
So now we're going to open it up for question and answer. So if you don't mind, please come up to the microphone over there.

[Speaker 10] (31:34 - 31:47)
Andy, I just wanted to point out, anyone on Zoom that wants to ask a question, they can raise their hand as an attendee, and we can allow them to ask. And there's some questions in the question and answer that we'll get to at the end as well.

[Speaker 13] (31:52 - 32:02)
The pre-blast survey, we'll be looking at the solidity of the walls, foundation. What about the piping in the ground?

[Speaker 5] (32:04 - 32:09)
There's no way to determine through a pre-blast survey the condition of the pipes in the ground.

[Speaker 13] (32:11 - 32:24)
I'm assuming the process of blasting the pipes going to the houses, including sewage, water, gas, can be damaged. And that cannot be seen immediately.

[Speaker 1] (32:27 - 33:09)
I just want to handle that from a blasting perspective. Things like piping in the ground, remembering that there's pipe under all the roadways, that 18-wheelers run over and everything else, they are not very sensitive to vibration. So even pipes coming into your house are much less sensitive than your foundation would be, or certainly certain plaster types would be.

So before you'd ever have any kind of an issue with pipes coming into your house, you would have an issue with a foundation or something that you could see. Because that would be the weaker structure, not pipes that are buried four, six, eight feet underground.

[Speaker 13] (33:09 - 33:19)
Yeah, but the houses, for example, my property is 80 years old, and I'm assuming the cast iron sewage pipe can be damaged very easily.

[Speaker 1] (33:21 - 33:32)
It takes some vibration to be able to do that, and it depends on where you are from the site, obviously. And that's a big reason why we have the seismographs out there, because that seismograph will be able to tell us what that ground vibration is.

[Speaker 13] (33:33 - 33:43)
Let's put it this way. I wouldn't see seepage or smell of the gas immediately, but in one, two days, it's going to happen. What's my action then?

[Speaker 1] (33:45 - 34:20)
If you feel like pipes have been damaged, there is a process through the fire department to fill out what's called the blasting damage complaint form. You fill out that form, and you explain on the form that this pipe has been damaged. You put down what you feel the damage has been, and that will document it for that day at that time when you thought it happened.

You sign the form under a perjury statement, and the fire department will handle it from there, and then it will end up at my insurance company. So are they going to fix it? They have to take a look at whether or not it was caused by blasting.

So... How long?

[Speaker 10] (34:24 - 34:28)
Please go to the microphone for questions so that they can hear you on the Zoom. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (34:28 - 34:43)
Yeah, I mean, it's a process. It's a process. As far as actually filling out the forms and getting it to the insurance company, they have 30 days to get back to you on that.

The forms that you could find at fire prevention, Swampskid Fire Prevention.

[Speaker 3] (34:45 - 36:13)
I'd like to add to that, too, because it's, you know, your concerns are... I hear you, and your concerns are legit. That's why this is a highly regulated part of the construction industry is blasting, and the state has done a good job to limit the amount of vibration.

You could certainly have damage of pipes by blasting if the state didn't put a cap on how much vibration there can be. So the state has put a cap on that. It's very strict.

Pete from Explosive Technologies will have to stay within that cap. And, again, not one, but four seismographs are going to be spread out around the site to make sure and police him to stay within that cap that a lot of very thoughtful people with geotechnical backgrounds have helped set up the CMRs that regulate blasting. And we have never, knock on wood, we certainly don't want it to be in my backyard, but we have never had a complaint of a broken pipe from blasting.

And we've blasted sewer and water lines down, you know, the center of streets with houses 10 or 15 feet away. And the pipe being cradled in the ground is probably one of the most secure places for the pipe to be.

[Speaker 15] (36:24 - 36:32)
The form doesn't have a deadline. It's blank where the day is. Is that the 28th, December 28th that these forms have to be in?

[Speaker 2] (36:33 - 36:34)
Yes.

[Speaker 15] (36:34 - 36:35)
Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (36:35 - 36:36)
Thank you.

[Speaker 11] (36:48 - 37:41)
Yeah, sorry, two quick questions so you can help me understand the process. Doug, by the way, I don't mean for this to be adversarial in any way. Doug's been great so far.

I've met him a few times. One of the questions has to do with dust and particulate accumulation on the surrounding homes. That's bound to happen.

I happen to abut the construction site. Will there be anything done to help remedy that for us? If, you know, I have a white house, it's going to get dirty if there's a lot of dust in the air.

Is that something you guys will take care of? So that's the first question. And the second question is actually directed at the pre-blast survey.

My house in particular was built in the 1800s. I have no doubt that you're going to find cracks probably all over the place. I guess my question is that if that is exacerbated by the blasting, how does that work from an insurance perspective?

Like with health care, you know, if you have a preexisting condition, you might be out of luck. How does that work in this particular situation?

[Speaker 5] (37:43 - 37:48)
That would be determined by the insurance company, right? They would look at his seismograph readings.

[Speaker 1] (37:48 - 38:20)
Right. I mean a big part of it is the video that he's going to do on the house to be able to see how clearly we can see those cracks. I say we.

I mean the insurance company when they're doing, you know, when they're investigating the whole thing. And then they'll take a look at the readings and see what kind of vibrations there were. And they have all kinds of documentation over decades and decades to know, you know, what happens at certain vibrations and certain types of plaster or sheet rock and that type of thing, what happens to existing cracks there.

So they have a pretty good feel for whether or not that's been exacerbated or not.

[Speaker 11] (38:20 - 38:20)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (38:21 - 38:21)
Yeah.

[Speaker 11] (38:23 - 38:30)
And as far as like the debris and dust remediation, maybe it won't be an issue at all. I don't have much experience with how much, you know, debris is going to be in the air.

[Speaker 3] (38:32 - 39:40)
So, you know, dust is always a concern. And one of the slides showed a water truck. So there will be a water truck on site to water the site at all times.

One of the dustiest parts of what we will do is when we're screening and crushing the rock. And crushing equipment has come a long way. And the dust suppression that we have on the equipment is, you know, fine mist spray nozzles create a fog and really control the dust well.

Fifteen years ago when we did this project, we had dust suppression, but not to the degree that we have now. And I think, I don't know if John Piccarillo, who has been out to our site and watched multiple crushing and screening operations with wearing his ERAC hat with the concern, the exact concern that you have that you should have. And I think we get good marks from ERAC on the jobs that John has inspected.

[Speaker 17] (39:41 - 40:05)
Yeah, he's correct. On one site, we actually had them with a fire hose spraying down the crushers because the water was not sufficient. On the Greenwood Ave site, they were constantly spraying down the piles, the crusher, all the operation moving the material around.

So they're aware of it, and we will certainly be monitoring it as well.

[Speaker 11] (40:06 - 40:08)
So it sounds like it shouldn't be a concern then.

[Speaker 9] (40:09 - 40:24)
I'd also like to add that if you do have a concern, please reach out to us, and we'll make sure that we deal with that. The dust from the demolition portion of the project that's already been completed was pretty substantial, and did you have any issues there?

[Speaker 11] (40:24 - 40:27)
No, no, it was well maintained. I mean, they had the hoses going the whole time.

[Speaker 9] (40:27 - 40:40)
Yeah, and it'll be the same with this. But if there is an issue, please reach out. I also have cards here that I'll hand out at the end.

So anything that comes up at all that any abutter has any concern, please call me, and we'll make sure we figure it out.

[Speaker 11] (40:40 - 40:41)
Great. Thank you.

[Speaker 9] (40:48 - 40:52)
I'm going to leave my cards on the back table there so anybody can grab one on the way out.

[Speaker 18] (40:56 - 41:01)
Hi, Nick.

[Speaker 12] (41:03 - 41:25)
Hi, Joe. I wanted to follow up this gentleman's question when you were talking about the insurance company. Are you suggesting that if I think that blasting has caused a crack in my walls and the insurance company in their wisdom says, nah, the blasting was within limits and our historical information is that that couldn't possibly have happened, that I could be denied coverage?

[Speaker 1] (41:27 - 41:37)
I mean, that you can be denied coverage because you believe that something had happened to your house and they're saying it didn't?

[Speaker 12] (41:37 - 41:53)
No, I'm saying something happened to my house, but the insurance company is saying, well, the blast limits were below the caps. They were, in our experience, they couldn't possibly have caused that crack. But when I know that there wasn't a crack there before and there is a crack there now after blasting.

[Speaker 1] (41:53 - 42:12)
Yeah, I mean, certainly insurance companies are not the easiest thing to deal with. I'll grant you that. But they do the best job that they can with the information that they have, and that's the precise reason why it would be to every abutter's benefit to go ahead and let Mr. Falvey here do the pre-blast survey.

[Speaker 12] (42:13 - 42:14)
Do I have any recourse against you guys?

[Speaker 1] (42:15 - 42:34)
Of course you do. You have recourse. Everyone has recourse.

I mean, I'd rather not get to that point, obviously. And, you know, as far as having our seismographs out there and doing what we're supposed to do according to state law and according to the special specs on this job, there shouldn't be any issues with damage to any of the structures out there.

[Speaker 12] (42:34 - 42:54)
And my other question would be, I wasn't here earlier, do you have any kind of map or does it make any difference? The original notice we got were essentially concentric circles, people entitled to blast surveys within 300 feet, 300 to 500 feet, above 500 feet. Is there any map with concentric circles that can tell people whether they're in there or not?

[Speaker 3] (42:55 - 43:15)
I wasn't here earlier. There's one on the slide presentation. We had it up earlier, Jim.

Oh, okay. That's cool then. Joe, when this school was done and you were in charge, it was a 250-foot radius.

Yeah. And we're going out to 300 to 500 feet here.

[Speaker 12] (43:15 - 43:15)
Yeah, I thought it was generous.

[Speaker 3] (43:15 - 43:21)
So they're elevating this significantly.

[Speaker 12] (43:22 - 43:24)
Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Thank you. Thank you.

[Speaker 10] (43:28 - 43:43)
We had a related question on the Zoom I'll read. It said, will the survey be accepted by our home insurers or will we have to have our insurance conduct their own inspection? Anyone speak to that?

[Speaker 1] (43:45 - 43:58)
Yeah, I mean, it's going to vary according to insurance companies. We don't have any control or information on that. We have no way of knowing what a particular homeowner's insurance company would be doing or what their protocol is.

[Speaker 14] (44:04 - 44:18)
I had a couple of questions. I wondered about one of you talked about dampening down the sound of the blast. How can you do that?

How can you limit the sound?

[Speaker 1] (44:20 - 46:14)
Yeah, there's a few ways to limit sound on blasting. First of all, the specifications on this job have already limited the sound to what we're allowed. State law in CMR 13-0 calls for 133 decibels as far as being your maximum sound allowed.

And I think I saw in the ERAC that we're down to 129 decibels, which is a very significant drop from 133 because that's an exponential function, meaning the difference between 129 and 133 is significant on an exponential basis. Well, that's encouraging. Yeah, so we're already limited below what state law is.

But there are methods that we can do on site while we're blasting where we use more blasting mats than maybe we need to, the mats that we put on top of the shot to prevent air blasts from coming up through that shot. Also, when we develop free faces, making sure that we don't have holes that are too close to that free face because when you propagate a hole close to an open face, you end up getting a significant amount of air blast. So your front row of holes needs to be brought back, and you need to have enough of what's called burden, which is the amount of ledge between your first hole and where the open face is.

And the third thing to do on site is with seams. You're going to have seams and voids in the rock, and we know about that when we do our drilling process and we document those seams. And we make sure we don't load explosives into those seams because, again, just like being too close to a face, when you have a seam that's not competent solid ledge, you stand a chance of really having increased air coming off of that shot, air blast.

So there's numerous ways on site to control that, and the seismographs don't only pick up ground vibration. They also monitor for the air blast. So that same seismograph that we're monitoring ground vibration will also give us that air blast number that I was just talking to you about, limited at 129 decibels.

[Speaker 14] (46:14 - 46:31)
I hope that will work. The other thing is I wondered, you probably don't have any idea how long this will last, the blasting, because you're not aware of just how deep it is or how prevalent it is. It's true.

[Speaker 1] (46:31 - 46:46)
I mean, we do have a schedule put together on what that looks like. Is there a little more rock, a little less rock than where we think it is now? And how quickly can we move forward with the blasting and that type of thing?

So there are still a lot of unknowns about the exact schedule on the blasting.

[Speaker 14] (46:46 - 46:51)
Right. I mean, are you thinking it could be three months, or would it be more like one month?

[Speaker 1] (46:52 - 46:57)
Actually, we're kind of right in the middle of that. I think we're thinking we're somewhere in the two-month process for blasting.

[Speaker 14] (46:58 - 46:59)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (47:05 - 47:43)
Four to five days a week. Correct. Only when we initiate the shot.

No, there will be more than one blast a day. We're probably talking about when we start off it will go a little bit slower in terms of just developing faces and getting enough mats on the shot and everything else. And then as we have a developed face and we can move a little bit, we can take a little bit larger shots.

Then we can get down to maybe one or two shots. It's probably two shots a day more than anything, though, on average.

[Speaker 15] (47:57 - 48:12)
I'm a little confused as to who does what in terms of corporations. There's CTA, and there's Hale and Holiday, and there's someone for demolition, and there's someone else. Can you give us an overview of who is actually responsible for what in terms of corporations?

[Speaker 2] (48:13 - 49:42)
Hale International, we are the owner's project manager. We're managing the project from design to construction to close out the project. So we'll be here from the beginning to the end.

If there's any concern, we're your first line of defense. Everything should go to us. Any complaint, anything, we want to hear it right away.

And then CTA, they're the general contractor, so they manage. I'm sorry. Jared, he's the project manager with CTA, the general contractor, and they're the one who hire the subcontractor to build the building.

They're the one in charge with all the construction. And then the superintendent, he's on site every day managing the subcontractor. Menino is the site.

They do the site work. And Fave, they're the one who will be doing your actual survey, pre-blast survey. And they're blasting technology, explosive technology.

They're the one who will be doing the blasting. Explosive technology. And they're the one who will be doing the blasting.

They're the subcontractor to Menino. Menino is the subcontractor to CTA. And we all work for the town.

[Speaker 15] (49:42 - 49:46)
Does CTA stand for anything that I can just talk about CTA?

[Speaker 4] (49:48 - 49:55)
Coughlin Tompkins Associates. What is it? Coughlin Tompkins Associates, but it's CTA.

[Speaker 2] (49:55 - 50:06)
Yeah, they have a lot of experience with construction. And we have LBA, who is the designer.

[Speaker 7] (50:19 - 50:42)
I just have one question with 16 subparts. Now, with respect to the blasting, I'm curious. Is it the blast that is regulated with the seismograph?

Or is there drilling, there's hammering, there's a lot going on, there's crushing? Does everything have to be below the decibel levels?

[Speaker 1] (50:43 - 50:55)
The blast is what I'm referring to when I talk, because I'm the one with the seismograph. So every time we shoot, I'm measuring the decibel levels and the ground vibration in inches per second. So as far as that goes, that is the responsibility of the blasting.

[Speaker 7] (50:56 - 51:19)
But there's other things going on on site that are pretty noisy. So I'm wondering whether it's just the blast that's regulated, or is it the other activities like the hammering, the drilling, things like the crushing of the rock? Because those things create a lot of noise also.

You're able to mitigate the blasting with the heavy mats and things like that. But what about the other things that are generating a significant amount of noise?

[Speaker 4] (51:21 - 51:55)
The rock-crushing operation, the equipment itself has means of helping to muffle some of the sounds. Also, depending on how the piles are stockpiled around the equipment, that will also help to alleviate some of the sound from the crushers. So we're going to work with Benino and his team to make sure that we're positioning our equipment and stockpiles in an appropriate manner to help minimize and mitigate sound to the best extent possible.

[Speaker 7] (51:56 - 52:07)
But are those things regulated, I guess, is my question. I know you've got to keep the blast below a certain seismograph level, the noise and the shaking, but are the other things regulated?

[Speaker 4] (52:10 - 52:13)
I don't know. I'd have to look and get back to you on that. All right.

[Speaker 1] (52:15 - 53:17)
Can I just speak to that one second? Not specific to this project, but I just finished a hospital in Gardner, Mass., over at Henry Haywood Hospital, and we were shooting within ten feet of the operating room. There was a little bit more rock there that they wanted to get out, and they had to do some hammering there.

I came out for another day, even after the blasting was done, and set up a seismograph. Now, while I was doing that blasting, I was getting readings on the seismograph. They were below what I had.

I was still within my limits. But then when I set it up for the hammering that was happening even closer to it, I couldn't even get a reading with the hammering. So while I understand the concern of the crushing and the hammering operations and things like that, my experience has been that the hammering, I couldn't even get the seismograph to trip, which means it was below 120 decibels, where I normally was confined to 133 with the blasting.

So generally the noise from the blast, because of air blast, is significantly more than everything else on site. At least that's been my experience in the last 30 years.

[Speaker 7] (53:17 - 53:22)
Maybe I'm misunderstanding it. The seismograph is measuring the shaking.

[Speaker 1] (53:22 - 53:29)
It actually does both. It measures the shaking of the ground as well as the air blast, because those are two parameters that I'm required to stay within limits on.

[Speaker 7] (53:29 - 53:30)
There's a decibel level.

[Speaker 1] (53:30 - 53:31)
Correct.

[Speaker 7] (53:31 - 53:44)
So I guess the question was that this gentleman hopefully will get back to us on is, it's not just the blast that we're looking at, the decibel reading. It's the hammering, the crushing.

[Speaker 1] (53:45 - 53:58)
Right. I understand, and what I'm saying to you is hammering right on top of that seismograph for nearly two weeks was not an issue sound-wise when I set up the seismograph for that. Having nothing to do with this project, just as a matter of fact and what happened.

[Speaker 7] (53:58 - 54:16)
With respect to the pre-blast survey for Mr. Falvey, my understanding is the form says fill out the form if you only want an exterior. If you need an interior survey in addition to the exterior, it's email or call you, correct? Correct.

Okay. And you're going to take the video and then you keep a copy of the video?

[Speaker 5] (54:17 - 54:17)
Yes.

[Speaker 7] (54:18 - 54:35)
Is that video available for the homeowner if they request it? Yes. Okay.

And who decides, like what are your policy limits? What's the damage? In other words, what are your limits for if somebody wants to make a claim?

Is there a minimum? Is there a maximum?

[Speaker 5] (54:37 - 54:41)
I don't decide that. I just come and document the existing conditions of your home.

[Speaker 7] (54:41 - 54:45)
So is that this gentleman's policy, I would imagine?

[Speaker 1] (54:46 - 54:50)
Well, it's not really my policy. We follow state law and then it gets turned into an insurance company.

[Speaker 7] (54:50 - 54:57)
No, I mean your insurance policy. In other words, you're covered up to X, like $1 million, $2 million.

[Speaker 1] (54:57 - 54:57)
Five.

[Speaker 7] (54:57 - 54:58)
Five.

[Speaker 1] (54:58 - 54:59)
Actually, seven.

[Speaker 7] (55:00 - 55:33)
A lot of homeowners around. I mean, conceivably, it could be more. I don't know.

It could be less. As a homeowner, a neighbor, a butter, it's interesting to know, you know, if there's 50 houses, everybody puts in a claim for something, could you potentially exceed that policy? It's just a question.

Somebody else had a question about repaving on the streets afterwards. A lot of traffic, a lot of trucks going back and forth. Do you know if the town or is there a plan for the contractors to make sure that, you know, the streets are in good shape when this whole project is done?

[Speaker 4] (55:36 - 55:52)
I don't know what the plan is after the project. I do know that we have to maintain, you know, the streets, keep them clean. I don't know if there's a long-term plan for repaving down the road.

That's something we'd have to talk with the town about.

[Speaker 10] (55:52 - 56:10)
Jared, I can speak to that a bit. Some of the streets in the immediate vicinity of the school are planned for improvements associated with the school project. So a large majority of the roadways in the immediate vicinity are going to undergo some improvements that will involve new paving.

[Speaker 7] (56:11 - 56:32)
Okay. And last question, there was, I think the chief had a map of the budding, you know, what was within the circle. Is that online somewhere?

On the school building committee? Yep. We can make that available on the school building committee.

Yeah, that would be helpful.

[Speaker 10] (56:33 - 56:34)
If it isn't already, absolutely.

[Speaker 7] (56:34 - 56:41)
Okay. Along with all the contact numbers for all these gentlemen up here? Yeah, we can make the whole presentation available.

That would be helpful. Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (56:51 - 57:22)
Also, we're going to have a follow-up meeting next Thursday on site, another follow-up meeting on site on December 15th at 3 p.m. as required by EREC at 3 p.m., yes. The fire department will be there in person with us, and also the police department will be there with us as well at the site. Pam Whitman.

[Speaker 8] (57:30 - 58:03)
So thank you, everyone, for coming here, and thank you guys, too. I think that it's important that you come to the meeting on the 15th if you are so inclined, but it's also important that you get these forms in as soon as possible because then we can just start the process and, you know, give you a comprehensive evaluation that you want. And I think that's it.

So we're going to get a new elementary school, and we're going to make it as best as possible for the neighborhood. Thank you.