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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPublic Works Committee Minutes 10.16.2017 MINUTES PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE OCTOBER 16, 2017 6:00 P.M. COUNCIL CHAMBERS MEMBERS PRESENT: Bill Mountsier Chuck Dickerson Dan Koch Marvin Carter Richard Herr OTHERS PRESENT: Kurt Markegard Public Input: None Review Minutes from Sentember 11, 2017 meetin� The minutes of the September 11�', 2017, meeting were approved as written. Storm Water Issues at the Waste Water Treatment Plant Kurt informed the committee about storm water flowing to the Waste Water Treatment Plant during the recent rain events. Kurt handed out a chart from the waste water plant that show the inflow to the plant. Kurt explained that the chart show a significant increase in flows on September 15`" during a rain event. The inflow on the chart showed on September 15th the inflows would exceed ten million gallons a day, if the inflows continued all day. Bill asked Kurt how to combat that inflows. Kurt stated that the only way to identify the inflows would be to open sewer manholes and find where the storm water was entering the sewer system Kurt also went over how the bacteria from the plant is getting washed out from chambers they are supposed to be in for treatment of the wastewater. The Waste Water Plant might take a month to recover from the rain event due to the bacteria loss. I Kurt inform the committee that he contacted Montana Rail Link last year about the raikoad pumping I' storm water from the Roundhouse into a sewer main and asked tnem to stop this practice. In the past, the Northern Pacific Railroad had an agreement with the City of Laurel to discharge sewer water to the city. That agreement included water from the railroad's Roundhouse. Most of the water leaving the Roundhouse is storm water. The Montana Department of Environmental Quality had been contacted about the storm water leaving the Raikoad's Roundhouse and allowed the Railroad to change the discharge to the Railroad's storm water line. MRL did disconnect the Roundhouse's storm water flows this summer and Kurt thought that this should help lower storm water inflows at the Waste Water Treatment Plant. Even after eliminating the railroad connection the Waste Water Plant is still receiving lots of storm water. Late at night during another rain event, Kurt went onto the CHS Refinery's property and asked permission from the security office to drive around to try to determine if any storm water was coming from CHS's property. Kurt was unable to tell that night and followed up with CHS the next time it rained during daylight hours. During that inspection it was determined that in fact CHS was discharging storm water into the City's sewer system. Kurt and the CHS personnel went into the Refinery to look at a CHS sewer ', lift station to see why storm water was flowing out of the li$ station's discharge line. They found that i storm water was running into the lift station and being pumped to the City's sewer system. CHS was i going to sand bag the lift station and slope the area around the lift station to stop storm water from � entering their lift station. Kurt is hopeful that this will also help reduce the inflows of storm water. 1 Kurt also informed the committee that he and the utility crew have been inspecting storm drain pipes to make sure that they are not connected to the sewer lines. The storm drain lines under 1 St Avenue North aze made of wood and it was suspected that this line might be leaking. The City crew ran a camera up the wood storm line and did not find any broken pipe. The storm water inspection manholes do not have a floor in them. It looks like the manholes were installed over the old wood water lines and then the wood ' water pipe was just cut open. Richard asked if the wood storm water line could be pipe burst. Kurt explained that the fire hydrant water lines are also in the manhole. These fire hydrant lines would have to be relocated in order to perform that process. Bill asked how many blocks the wood storm drain goes up lst Avenue and Kurt reply up to the Ricci's Express Store across from the city pool. Kurt also located a storm drain inlet on 1 S� Avenue and West 9�' Street and it appears that the discharge � line goes into the high school parking lot. Kurt is going to contact the school and see where the storm ; drain line goes to make sure that it is not connected to the sewer system. Dan asked if you could stick a camera in the line and use sonar to find out where the storm line goes. Kurt said that our camera is not equipped with sonar but that Cotter's Sewer Service has the ability to locate their camera. Cotter's camera can only extend 200' though. Kurt also raised the possibility that citizens have ground water sump pumps connected to their sewer lines. The amount of flow coming from these sump pumps could be a source of the water going to the sewer treatment plant. Richard asked if that water could be diverted before it get to the waste water plant and Kurt stated that there is no way to separate that water as the lines are all interconnected. Kurt also is aware that some businesses' roof drains are connected and he is trying to eliminate those connections. Last year the city crew put ping pong balls into the storm drains to see if they would show up at the waste water treatment plant. No ping pong balls ever showed up at the waste water treatment plant indicating that the storm water lines are not connected to the sewer system. The committee asked Kurt if he was going to investigate this matter further and he stated he would. Rock Weir Removal Costs Kurt informed the committee that the City Council will be taking up the issue of rernoving the rock weir in the Yellowstone River. The City asked five companies for quotes to do the work and three submitted quotes. Kurt also had asked that these companies provide a quote to clean out the backwash pond at the water treatment plant. The lowest quote for the clean out of the backwash ponds was lower with a company that had a higher quote to remove the rock weir. Kurt did not think going forward with the cleaning of the backwash pond at this time was a good idea as the City should take the lowest quote to remove the rock weir. The backwash pond cleaning can go out for quotes as its own project. By removing the rock weir the 2003 intake may be exposed to the air. Th�s intake will have to be marked so boaters don't hit it. Richard asked if the rocks removed from the weir can be used to keep people from driving up the river bank in Riverside Park. Kurt stated that a flood plain permit would have to be applied for and the City was told by FEMA that the rocks cannot be stored in the flood plain. It may be possible to reuse the rocks in Riverside Park if a flood plain permit can be acquired. ' If the company with the low quote cannot safely remove the rock this fall or winter, they indicated that it ', would cost no more than five thousand more dollars to do the work in the spring. The Army Corp wants the weir out of the river before next fall. 2 Other Richard asked about the possibility to move the Public Works Committee meeting to the third Monday so that Marv could attend the meeting. The committee agreed to discuss this at the next meeting. Richard also asked about the reasons to replace the water plant sedimentation basins and what are the reasons to not fix the sedimentation basins as they are. Kurt stated that he would have to get more information and he would report back at the next meeting. Richard wanted to know what the options are for the materials for a building. Richard suggested some type of blow up building that would be at a lower cost than a block building. Kurt informed the committee that the City would be looking at engineering proposals from engineering firms as the contract with Great West Engineering for on-call engineering services is expiring soon. The meeting adjourned at 6:59 p.m. Respectful submitted, Kurt Markegard I I 3