Public Works Report for 2009
I want to extend a thank you to our Town Manager, Board of Selectmen, and you, the taxpayer, for your support over the past years.
The Public Works crew consists of seven people working with five departments supervised by me. This crew is dedicated to serving the Town of Colebrook at the very best of their abilities. My hat comes off in honor of these men and women. They have donated their own time and resources on numerous occasions to the Towns overall benefit. The newly painted V-plow at the entrance to our facility site is a prime example.
I want to thank Melony Lyons for lettering the plow. Excellent looking sign! Thank you!
We began grading roads on May 12 and completed 31 miles of Class V roads by June 22. A second round of grading was done on the same roads from July 22 through the early fall. We also graded our Class VI roads one round. Dependent on traffic load, some of our roads were graded a third time. The more traffic, the more wear, on the road surface. We hauled screened gravel to cover the areas we placed rock in during spring breakup. The majority of this went on Bennett Hill Road.
We have a lot of work lined up for 2010 with the grant money that will be coming in to town. The new water wells north of town will be connected to our system with~a new pump house being built opposite the Kheop's establishment. Construction will start this spring. The Connecticut River bank stabilization project at the Industrial Park will also be done in 2010. The Mohawk River wall project on Academy Street is also slated for 2010.
The Public Works Department is obligated to provide $78,000.00 of "in-kind" work to these projects so most of our time and energy will be devoted to these projects in the summer of 2010 as our share of the grant requirements.
We finished capping the Landfill in 2009 and started generating electricity from the methane gas in mid-August. The Town will earn some money from this every month, which you can see under town revenues. The generator will probably run for about ten years.
You will also notice another tower at the Landfill. This is a 180' wind tower to study wind speeds, direction, elevation, etc. Pennsylvania Power & Light, the company that operates the generator, are funding the study. We hope the study shows wind power is feasible on the site, sufficient to produce power from the wind.
The Town is investigating District Heat, which would consist of a central boiler piping heat to the buildings in the downtown area. Preliminary numbers indicate that this will be a more affordable way to heat. We are conducting a prefeasibility study in the spring of 2010 to aid us in this initial stage. The study is funded by a grant from the NH Charitable Foundation.
Sincerely,
Kevin F. McKinnon
Public Works Director
Transfer Station Hours
Tues. & Thurs. 9 AM- 3 PM
Sunday 8 AM- 4 PM
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