PLYMOUTH — Voters at the spring special town meeting will be asked whether the town should fund the upgrade or replacement of the HVAC system at the town’s Wastewater Treatment Plant, which the plant’s manager said has been eroded by untreated acid in the system.
Wastewater Manager Douglas Pinard, who oversees the 20-year-old plant’s operations, said that previous operators let untreated glycol sit in the HVAC system for too long, allowing it to turn into acid that damaged multiple pipes and two boilers. Pinard said that the boilers have been replaced and the pipes patched, but the HVAC system is still unreliable and limited.
“If you don’t give it a treatment system, it turns into an acid, which just eats all the metal and starts breaking it down,” Pinard said. “So we've patched that along the way, and it's gotten to the point where now it's eating up a lot of the larger heating units.”
Pinard said that fixing the HVAC system is not optional. Some equipment leaks so badly that it has to be isolated, water lines have burst, and the fire suppression system froze this winter. The plant operates a testing lab that needs to be kept at a certain temperature, and in late 2025, an HVAC unit regulating the lab temperature failed.
If passed, the article would authorize the town to appropriate “a sum of money for the planning and design of the upgrade and/or replacement” of the HVAC system. It would not authorize the town to appropriate money for the actual upgrade or replacement.
Officials have not provided a cost estimate for the design of an upgrade or replacement. Pinard said that the town would appropriate money from the enterprise fund, but he and other officials would seek grant funding to subsidize the cost.
Pinard said that the system had already suffered acid damage before he was hired about four years ago, and the previous manager had to replace a damaged boiler before he left.
“I don't know if or when they ever treated [the glycol] before I was here,” he said. “No one took care of the system. It just went on and on and on and on.”
Pinard said that since he became manager, he has had the system flushed with cleaner and replaced the old glycol. They contract a company to test the pressure and pH of the glycol and adjust it if it becomes too acidic.
“It's a historic problem, but we're now paying for those historic choices,” Select Board Member Kevin Canty said.
The town has already funded some study of upgrade options: Pinard said he hired a consultant who presented replacement options that are more energy efficient than the current system. By the time that research concluded, the deadline had passed to submit an article to the annual town meeting warrant, so Pinard submitted it to the special town meeting warrant. If the article passes, he hopes to seek funding for construction in the fall.
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