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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSpecial City Council Minutes 04.29.2008MINUTES OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF LAUREL Apri129, 2008 A .special meeting of the City Council of the City of Laurel, Montana, was held in the Council Chambers and called to order by Mayor Ken Olson at 6:00 p.m. on Apri129, 2008. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Emelie Eaton Gay Easton COUNCIL MEMBERS ABSENT: Kate Hart Alex Wilkins OTHER STAFF PRESENT: Mary Embleton Sam Painter Bill Sheridan Mark Mace Chuck Dickerson Doug Poehls Norm Stamper PUBLIC HEARING: i~ i~ • March 31, 2008 Amendment to the Preliminary Engineering Report of the August 2007 Water Facility Plan Public Works Director Bill Sheridan stated that this special council meeting is for a public hearing involving an amendment to the Preliminary Engineering Report of the August 2007 Water Facility Plan. Patrick Murtagh, Great West Engineering, stated that they have been working on the PER Update and a Treasure State Endowment Program grant. They will also apply for a DNRC grant. Patrick stated that the grant is complete and additional things could be added to it later this week if anything else becomes available. He stated that he has presented the information twice already and would present the new information now. Patrick stated that time has been spent doing the hydraulic modeling on the computer. The water system improvements have not changed since the last meeting and they were explained well by Tim at the plant last week. The cost per user changed slightly because there are more users than originally anticipated. The cost went down from $4.66 to $4.22 per user. Patrick passed out some maps to the council. The first map showed the fire flows. Using a random number of hydrants in the system, he had the computer figure out how much flow is available during a fire while maintaining at least 20 pounds of pressure throughout the system. There can be problems. with back siphoning if pressure falls under 20 pounds. He stated that fire flow is controlled not necessarily by the hydrant and the pipe right before the hydrant, but out in the system it is necessary to make sure that pressures are not reduced too much. That is a requirement by the State of Montana, the American Waterworks Association, and National Fire Protection Codes. The next map showed some zones. The red line on the map marks the changeover from where we will be operating at a higher hydraulic grade. The different hydraulic grade is however high the tank is that is going to serve the other area. The area between the red line and the green dotted line will be served with a tank that is about 100 feet higher than the one that is currently serving all of Laurel. Pat stated that this is projected out to the future and is not part of the project in the grant application. If we put a water storage tank to serve this other zone, and this other zone is served by that tank and by the existing Cherry Hills Booster Station, we just upsize it a little bit. Then the fire flows have increased dramatically, not only right in the Cherry Hills area, but throughout the city. The reason is that the controlling nodes are no longer part of that zone to the south. So in a lot of places, there will be an extra thousand gallons per minute of fire flow. Pat emphasized that no pipes have changed down in that lower area and it is just because an upper zone was created. Anybody in the upper zone is going to have forty pounds of pressure all the time. Right now, there are two boaster stations that pull off of the main zone. That gets a little bit dangerous because if they ever draw a vacuum, you can get back-siphoning. They really try to avoid having booster stations unless there is a water storage tank serving both sides of the booster station. On the next page, they looked at upsizing the delivery line to the proposed site tank A, which increased fire flows all the more. He explained that a pressure reducing valve basically stays closed all the time except when there is a sharp drop in pressure down in the lower area. It allows water to flow from a higher area to the lower area. This does three things. It augments the flow, keeps better pressure, but allows use of the water storage Council Minutes of April 29, 2008 that is in the higher zone for the lower zone. Instead of putting more storage in a lower zone, just put it in the higher zone and put in the pressure reducing valve. Pat said that another site was looked at in the report and it worked even better when putting the tank up in the northwest area. He does not know if there is any developer nut there right now, but that would be the preferred spot. He stated that this would be a win-win situation for the residents of Laurel with someone else paying far this tank and helping make this zone. At the same time, the city can provide water so the developer does not have to use half-acre or full-acre lots for every home. It also would increase the tax base because the city wauld annex as a condition of providing water. These are things to look at into the future and are not included in the grant application. Pat stated that the city's storage right now is in one 4-million gallon tank. He is proposing just a ane million gallon tank. Then as the city develops to the east, another tank should be put up there to give the redundancy to shut dawn one tank and work on it. Two one-million gallon tanks are not much more expensive than one two-million gallon tank. But ten 100,000 gallon tanks are going to cost a lot more than a single million gallon tank. Pat asked the council members to sign a sheet of support for the grant. Mayor Olson opened the public hearing and read the rules governing the public hearing. Mayor Olson asked three times if there were any proponents. There were none. Mayor Olson asked three times if there were any opponents. There were none. Mayar Olson closed the public hearing. Council Member Dickerson asked regarding the blue lines on the maps. On the legend, the blue lines showed existing water lines, but the maps did not have blue lines. Patrick stated that it should have been removed from the legend. The purple dots on the map show the valves. Mayor Olson asked if there was any public input. There was none. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business to come before the council at this time, the meeting was adjourned at 6:20 p.m. Cindy All ,Secretary Approved by the Mayor and passed by the City Council of the City of Laurel, Montana, this 6t~' day of May, 200$. nneth E. Olson, Jr., May Attest: Mary K. ibleton, Clerk-Treasurer