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HomeMy Public PortalAbout20060914WSCommMinutes.doc Water and Sewer Committee Minutes for September 14, 2006 Chairman Crone called the meeting to order at 5:30PM. Members in attendance in addition to Crone were Paul Wolff and Wanda Doyle. Ms. Doyle moved to approve the minutes with correction, and Mr. Wolff seconded, and the vote was unanimous. Mr. Crone asked what materials were needed to get everything running at the sewer plant. Mr. Williams said concerning the aerator they are doing a trial period with Aerodyne Corporation. He said the aerator will be delivered on October 2nd and they will try it for 30 days. If it works well they plan to purchase three of them at $23,000 a piece. He said the other three ATI aerators are on the bank and he has gotten the cost estimate to fix or replace the gear box at $5,000. He doesn’t recommend relying on the ATI aerators. He said he has an Engineering report that states those aerators are not sound equipment. Mr. Crone asked when we could expect all three aerators to be up and running. Mr. Williams said that the one is being delivered on October 2nd for the 30 day trial and if it performs well the other two can be purchased. Mr. Crone said a bid has to go out before a purchase is made and that will take more time. Mr. Williams said the Aerodyne aerators are less costly than others he has seen. Ms. Fox said if he has the specs it could go out to bid now. Mr. Lovett said he could get the specs for it. Mr. Williams said we can send it out for bid but he really wants to see what it can do first and he feels it will be far less expensive than others. Ms. Fox said if it is over $20,000 it has to go out for bid unless they can write a sole source justification. Mr. Lovett said they can put the specs together and start advertising the job around the first of October. Mr. Williams said they will probably know within a week if the aerators are hydraulically well made. Ms. Fox said we need a 15 day advertising window. Mr. Crone said we have one aerator over there working and we should have three and one sludge pump working and we should have two. Mr. Williams said they have one sludge pump that has just been rebuilt so its like brand new and the other one is being rebuilt now and should be back next week. So the two new sludge pumps should both be online next week. He said if they would like to do a third one as a back up he would if he has the money but if not he can put it in his capital budget for next year. He said they cost $14,000 brand new. Mr. Crone asked if that was the same kind of pumps that keep breaking down. Mr. Williams said yes that is the same pump. Mr. Crone said we will buy it and three months down the road have to spend $11,000 to rebuild it. Mr. Williams said that is what was recommended at the last Plant Rehab because it was the cheapest. Mr. Crone said that should be Page 1 of 4 reexamined before we make the purchase because the cheapest isn’t always the best. Mr. Williams said they could take their time in looking for the third one but the other two are almost rebuilt and in place. Mr. Lovett said we don’t need but one clarifier working right now. Mr. Reese said one is all they have working. He said when they get the second pump back that will have the back up pump for the operation of the plant. Mr. Crone asked why there are three over there. Mr. Lovett said three are needed in the summertime with two clarifiers working to handle the heavy load and the third becomes the backup. Ms. Fox requested specs on the aerator and sludge pump to get the bids written and get them out so we don’t go through this next month. Mr. Crone asked how long it would be until we have to go to EPD and request an expansion to increase our limits. Mr. Williams said in the summer we will always face going right to our capacity. Mr. Lovett said what EPD normally does is when you get to 80 or 85% of your permitted capacity they ask what plans your making to expand your plant. He said if you get to 90% they want to see construction plans. Mr. Williams said we are at the point that we have had to have the first meeting with EPD and we are ranging from 85 to 89%. He said they have already taken the first steps that were recommended and submitted an application. Mr. Lovett said at this stage they want to see what plans you’re making to expand your plant. He said the thing that Mr. Williams is doing, is a program trying to eliminate ground water in the sewer. He said every gallon of ground water you can eliminate from your system is the same number you are expanding your plant by and that rehab program has been very successful. He said otherwise the city would have been expanding the plant two or three years ago. Mr. Lovett said they didn’t expand the plant but they upgraded the plant because of a problem treating the wastewater hydraulically and they made the plant work better. He said they didn’t increase Tybee’s ability to discharge more. Mr. Crone said that is what we need now. Mr. Williams said he was concerned with the increase being enough. Mr. Lovett said 500,000 gallons will give you 1,600 single family homes. Mr. Wolff suggested doubling the plant capacity because of the additional subdivisions that are being submitted and the amount of construction that is being done. He said that doesn’t include the summertime either. Mr. Williams said if they expand the public bathrooms that will increase the flow also without additional residences. Ms. Schleicher said she thinks we were talking about replacing existing bathrooms instead of creating additional bathrooms. Mr. Lovett said he didn’t recommend doubling the plant. He said they should go one and one half times and then look at doubling by adding another phase to the Page 2 of 4 plant. He said they don’t know what limits EPD is going to place on them yet but he thinks they will be stronger than they are now. He said if your treating more wastewater you can put less poundage in the receiving streams than your putting today you will have to have a lot more sophisticated plant. He said when you’re talking 4.5 million dollars to go to one and one half the capacity then you might be talking 6 million for double capacity and you also have land limits over there. He said you wouldn’t build a concrete with reinforced steel basin. He said you would put the piping in for the future basin that you could tie into. Mr. Williams said they have seasonal limits on the plant but they may be able to move around within those seasonal limits. He said they are looking at more and more full time residents. Mr. Lovett said they were able to get the seasonal permits so that we were not bumping the limits in June, July and August. He said it is not as seasonal as it used to be. Mr. Wolff said assuming all the spec houses being constructed along with the condos were sold to full time residents they would be tapped out. Mr. Lovett said they need to plan for that whether or not they design for it at this time would be a decision that would be made down the road. Mr. Crone said it can’t be far down the road considering what they have now only lasted six years. Mr. Williams said they are in the process of getting good equipment so that the plant won’t get that bad again. Ms. Doyle asked at what stage the EPD will come back and says what’s going on and shut the Island down. Mr. Lovett said the City is a long way from a Moratorium by EPD. Mr. Crone said he thinks they are discussing it. Mr. Lovett said they want to see the city doing something. He said writing a letter to increase the waste allocation is the first step and the Mayor has received the response from EPD saying they’ve started that process. He said once we know what the allocation is we can do a cost estimate. He said his opinion is we will see a tightening on our affluent. He said Jennifer Oetgen said you will have to go to a filter system and that’s one of the big expenses. Ms. Oetgen said they are reissuing all the MPDS permits into the Savannah River Basin. She said they would like to consider Tybee an ocean discharge but they are still looking at how to improve the water quality in the Savannah River Basin and would not consider Tybee outside of that. op Mr. Wolff asked about implementing a reuse water system. Mr. Lovett said Tybee doesn’t have anyplace to use it like a Golf Course or a big huge park. Mr. Williams said we do have a lot of condos that use a lot of water for irrigation such as the Racquet Club. He said he is looking at putting drainage in that area so he is working with public works to run reuse pipe down that way all the way to the racquet club. Mr. Lovett said it has been a standard practice in the industry for years to use your treated wastewater for wash down. He said when you start going and spraying it on public land that is a whole new path. He said they did the same thing for Pooler and they have an affluent line that is going to the Golf Course and an affluent line that is going to a recreation park and they are putting restrictions on them like they can’t believe. Page 3 of 4 Mr. Wolff said he would like to see the reuse pipes run down along Bay Street to the Racquet Club including the Sanctuary because those areas can’t have wells. Mr. Lovett said what the EPD wants to see you doing is using that water in areas where you would normally be using ground water. He said they had talked to EPD about spraying on the Dunes and they said no because that is not a standard use for groundwater. Mr. Crone asked Mr. Williams if he had everything under control to get the Sewer Plant working. Mr. Williams said yes. Mr. Lovett said he had given Mr. Williams a list of questions today about the Ft. Screven Water Line and he gave him the set of marked up plans. Mr. Williams said he would have them back to him by the first of next week. Mr. Crone said he had the campground put on the agenda because they don’t have but one cutoff over there and if anything leaks they have to shut the whole park down. Mr. Williams said the only problem with that is they don’t have any maps what so ever on that property. He said what they will try to do when time allows they will go over there with a metal detector and a locator box and try to locate those lines and determine as best we can where a valve would go. Mr. Williams said they will start rehabbing lift station # 9 when they get through with meter reading. He said they will completely rehab it by putting in a wet well and a lift station up on the ground to get rid of that old can station. Mr. Reese said it will be done in thirty days. Mr. Crone asked if we would be good to go on the Highway 80 project on October 1st. Ms. Fox said the Agreement is on the Agenda for tonight to be signed. Ms. Effird asked who was paying for it. Mr. Crone said the City of Tybee Island. Ms. Effird asked if they were being assessed. Ms. Fox said no. Mr. Keitzman asked about the discounted tap in fees. Mr. Williams asked if the people that paid for the survey and the engineering were receiving a break on their tap fees. Mr. Crone said that is what he understood was there would be $2,000 discounted on tap in fees for those that paid for the Engineer and Survey but he hasn’t seen any figures on that cost and he isn’t willing to guess at the amount. Ms. Effird said they have a $15,000 engineering bill that is due. Mr. Keitzman said they will get Mr. Boswell’s final figure and let Mr. Crone know how much they paid. The meeting was adjourned. Respectfully submitted by Vivian Woods Page 4 of 4