Loading...
HomeMy Public PortalAbout20110609INFRAMinutesINFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES CITY OF TYBEE ISLAND June 9, 2011 5:00 P.M. ATTENDEES: Paul Wolff, Bill Garbett, Bill Lovett, Bob Whelchel, Kathryn Williams, Barry Brown, George Reese, Joe Wilson, Ethan Imhoff, Mary Hogan and Diane Schleicher. Paul Wolff called the meeting to order and thanked Julian and Stan (Georgia Power) for coming. Approve the minutes of the previous meeting. – Paul Wolff asked for a motion to approve the minutes from the last 2 meetings (April & May) – Bill Garbett so moved, Kathryn Williams seconded. New Business: Georgia Power Substation and Utility Line Upgrades Kathryn Williams asked, in regards to the tree cutting on Jones, if this is the only alternative. We are talking about loosing a significant number of trees. Georgia Power representatives come to the table with their site plans. Looking at the plans they explain, right now the one main circuit on Butler feeds everything from the sub-station to the south end of the island. Everything is on the one circuit. So in order to get another one down there, we looked at every one of the side streets, but Jones is a direct line lay out, almost down to the other end. Actually, looking at it, it had the most tree problems or trees that will create problems for us. There were 19 palm trees but instead of taking those out we have talked about sizing our poles 5ft. taller. Mike, the engineer from Georgia Power, states the good thing about the taller poles is that you will have about a 35ft. canopy below the line for the palm trees. Also, with the 55 ft. poles that we’re setting in there, you would be above most of the hardwood trees. They would be just slightly trimmed, scalloped out. We are going to try to do minimal trimming on the hardwood trees. That is part of my engineering plan is to design a line around the trees so that we can make sure that we don’t go in there and butcher trees. We are going to try to save as many trees as we can. The pine trees that are marked on the project, that need to come out, are pines that are leaning in towards the line. I’ve talked with Joe Wilson about some of them. If we go out there and do trimming on the line itself, we are actually going to make the tree one sided. That tends to make the tree, in wind, lean more to one side. Which might be a liability for the City; it’s a City tree, if it falls onto somebody’s property and damages something. Joe and I have looked at those and have decided to take those out. Our proposal on taking trees out is to remove the tree, haul the debris, grind the stump and fill the hole. We have talked about doing some replacement trees and would like to talk with you about what you want to ask for. Overall, we cannot provide you with replanting 50-60 ft pine trees. We will work with you either paying you an amount for each tree we cut (by the size) or you could hire an arborist to price the trees. We’re willing to by the pines that we need to cut. Kathryn Williams states her number one concern is safety even above electrical service. You are very well aware of the issues we are having with slow response time to fires; 45 minutes is just not acceptable. It is my understanding that this will address that problem in that you will be able to turn off power to sectors. So public service is my number one concern followed by reliable electricity and also protecting our canopy, which is part of our “Master Plan”; a big part of it. Also, the aesthetics. Kathryn states that Barry Brown raised a good question; going underground with this section and the feasibility of doing that. Georgia Power states that it would be too expensive. If you wanted to go underground, that would be a significant charge. We can certainly estimate that. This is the least impactful way that we can get this section rise so that your island has more options when you have an outage. We are going to rebuild that sub-station and put in the 4 feeders to modernize Tybee. It will give you more options when we have an individual outage. We would be glad to have Mike (Georgia Power) to walk you down this route so that you could visible see so that you could get a perspective. I would recommend you doing a walk through so you can visualize it. We will work with any customer that has issue about pole placement. Bill Garbett asked if that main line is just going to take power all the way to the end and dump it off there or is that line going to feed the residents on Jones too. Mike from Georgia Power states they are going to do two things: We are going to set up 2 feeders. One commercial, the other residential. We’re going to come right along Lovell and do a separation. We will have a separator on Butler for the commercial and Lovell for the residential. Each one will be designed so we can carry the whole load of both streets and you wouldn’t have an outage. II. ULTRAVIOLET (UV) DISINFECTION SYSTEM A. Trojan options 1. PLC Only – Equipment cost $67,000 (not including installation) 2. New System – Equipment cost $153,000 (not including installation) a. George Reese states that the UV Disinfection System is 10 years old (put in 2001) and is down. The manufacturer will no longer fix it. You can get bulbs and mechanical parts but not the electronics for the control cabinet. After talking with Mary, the $270,000 I have in the budget for the Belt Press will now have to go towards this UV System. I’ve got no choice. This is a must; we have to have this unit. b. Bill Lovett states that Bob Whelchel from HGBD has been working with George on this problem. We’re using equipment manufactured by Trojan. They’re not supporting the equipment that George has anymore. What we need is a PLC; it’s like the brains of the system. The equipment is $67,000, not including installation. Or you can purchase a whole new system which is $153,000, not including installation. B. Other Manufacturers 1. Bill Lovett states that we have looked at Wedeco. They have changed their design and think they can fit their equipment into your chase, into your structure. George states we don’t know. No one has looked at it. 2. Bill states that the City’s annual power cost on your UV System right now is about $17,500. If you went with the brand new system (Energy Star) it would cost you about $1,500. If you go with a GEFA loan, the money that you would be saving on the power costs would pay for the equip- ment. 3. George Reese states he doesn’t have a year, or 6 months. The unit Could go down and I would be done. I’ve got “pieces” right now. The system is working but I cannot monitor the system because of the electronics; I can’t repair them. 4. Bob Whelchel states the current UV System runs off of a ballast system. UV technology that we are seeing today is all solid state. A ballast uses a lot of energy to transfer energy to the bulk. With the new solid state UV, you’re going to see improved performance in terms of power. We had a third party on site this week to give another opinion. She was adamant, if you loose one of those boards, I can’t do anything for you. 5. Paul Wolff states he is leaning towards the new system but asked if we have any idea how long this new technology will be reputable. 6. Bob states that a similar system in the region, Trojan 4000 like you have, has internal circuitry that is Allen Bradley. Allen Bradley is an off the shelf, in the PLC business for the next blanket number of years. They have been reliable for the last 40 years as I have seen. They have been around for a long time. They do internal logic control. Whatever panel or replacement that we put in needs to lean more to off the shelf replacement parts; your current panel lacks that. 7. Bill Lovett states that if you go with the new PLC, and when you are ready for upgrades, you will be locked into the Trojan system. 8. George states you have a channel up there that is already conformed to what you have (Trojan). If you have to put another channel in you’re talking mega bucks. We don’t know yet if this is 100% convertible. 9. Bob states that most of the manufactures are flying out to the AWWA Conference. Hard information I haven’t been able to get. Absolute quotes have not been possible. What I am getting is the configuration of your concrete structure, we intentionally sized it large, because we knew as time goes on Tybee is going to grow and you will need additional channel capacity to put in more UV system. So you have the net concrete channel width; the question is, can we, while this system is operating, insert another manufacturers equipment and/or another Trojan UV unit in that channel before we take the other one out of service. The answer is they think they can do that. As it appears right now, it’s doable. We still have to look at that. 10. Paul asked if we can hold off another month and wait for some solid information. George states yes we can. Paul states he would like to suggest that we ask our engineers to confirm that it’s not a maybe; it’s that they can definitely use the existing infrastructure in terms of the concrete facilities and that they would be adaptable to the complete new system, the Wedeco. My suggestion, and I will look for a motion, would be to explore the feasibility of doing a new system within a $260,000 parameter and if that is doable, then move forward. Kathryn Williams so moved. Old Business: I. HISTORIC BUTLER AVENUE PEDESTRIAN SAFETY PROJECT A. Schedule 1. Project Manual a. Submitted May 2nd b. Comments received and addressed 2. Construction Plans a. 90% Plans submitted May 2nd b. No response from DOT 3. Utility Certification a. “No Impact” Letters received from: (1) Georgia Power (2) City of Tybee (3) Comcast b. Still awaiting letter from AT&T – Bill Lovett states that AT&T told us this week that they would write that letter today. Still waiting on the letter. AT&T says the letter is not a problem; it’s just getting the right letter. 4. DOT Construction Agreement a. Approved by Council b. Submitted to DOT 5. TIME FOR POLITICAL HELP a. Goal is to Advertise for Bids in August b. Need accelerated review and approval of Construction Plans c. Need DOT approval of Construction Agreement (1) Butler Avenue Sidewalk Project sat for 1 year waiting on signatures (2) Moreland-Altibelli’s practice is to send agreement to DOT for signatures one month before Bid Date. d. Need Authorization to Bid II. WATERSHED PROJECTION PLAN A. Watershed Assessment approved without comments B. Protection Plan Due Date Revised to December 15, 2011 1. Important to meet deadline 2. Plan must be reviewed and approved by: a. EDP b. Infrastructure Committee c. Full Council C. Horse Pen Creek/Spanish Hammock 1. Tybee Testing for Problems over which they have no control a. Bill Lovett shows on a map (that George brought in) where the sampling points are located where we sample for the Watershed Assessment. This area has tested positive for ecoli bacteria and enterococci bacteria. George and Jennifer Oetgen have talked about instead of going to EPD they have decided to not include all of these points in the Watershed Protection Plan. You can justify why we’re not sampling here because this area is so heavily influenced by Chimney Creek. It’s a County problem not a City of Tybee problem. 2. “Why should Tybee pay for testing to show that Chatham County has a problem?” – George Reese D. Engineering Fee Proposal - $18,765.00 1. Bill Garbett moved to recommend that we accept this proposal. Kathryn Williams seconded. III. NPDES (WASTEWATER DISCHARGE) PERMIT A. No comments on Public Notice B. All data submitted to EPD IV. IV. McKenzie and Hwy 80 Cross-walk Status A. Contract Signed and Construction to Start July 5, 2011 V. TYBEE GREENWAY/BIKE TRAIL TE GRANT Grant – TE Grant Announced – Tybee Awarded $200,000 towards Project With no further business to discuss, Paul Wolff asked for motion to adjourn. Bill Garbett so moved. Kathryn Williams seconded. “A quorum of city council members may be present which would constitute a meeting.” Respectfully submitted by Karen Reese on 07-13-11