SERVICE/UTILITIES COMMITTEE MINUTES

                                                                                                                                                      MARCH 31, 2015                                                           

 

 

Committee Chair Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. Members of the Committee in attendance were Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins and Mr. Evers.  Mr. Licht was absent and excused.  Also attending from Council were Ms. DePledge, Mr. Hoefle, Ms. Vaughn and Council President D’Ambrosio.

 

Present from the Administration were Mayor Morley, City Engineer Gwydir, Law Director Klammer, Service Director Rubertino and the Service Department’s sanitary sewer employee Mr. Mastrocola.     

 

STORMWATER PLANNING & PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION

Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins:  Mr. Gwydir?

 

Mr. Gwydir: As you are aware Eastlake joined the Lake County Stormwater Utility and they have identified to us that approximately a half million dollars will be available to us this year and we anticipate in succeeding years to address stormwater issues throughout the City.  We had Mr. Miller of the Stormwater Utility here and went over the items the City could spend money on.  It amounted to pretty much anything stormwater related.  Upon meeting with him I reviewed the flooding problems Eastlake has had which are identified on the maps provided and are color coded with eight areas which are prone to flooding problems during storms.  They are Lakeshore Blvd., Erie Road intersection, Edison and Mondamin Drives, North and South Riverview, the Glen/Iris Drives area, the Freed Drive and Bertha Court areas, the Grovewood Drive area, East 332^nd and Alva and Galalina Blvd.  When I look at these problems as an engineer some of these items are affected by one or more drainage areas and some are stand alone. Most areas are affected by other areas with the sole exception of Galalina Blvd. which sits in a basin and is surrounded by a dike along the lake and a branch of the river.  In looking at what to do we looked at what could get the biggest bang for the buck and the considerations I made are provided in the handout. I thought the first place to start would be in the Glen/Iris/Bertha/Freed/Grovewood/Lakeshore Blvd. storm system area.  Regarding the handout on this area the first color is green and highlights the system which ties into Roberts Road just before the railroad tracks and exits into a creek along the dead pond.  The other section in blue is an independent system which goes out the back way along Arline Avenue and also dumps out in that area.  The black dots with pink are the houses that have been affected at one time or the other. I am suggesting that we contract a firm to come in and televise these lines and clean the lines to see if there is anything blocking the lines anywhere and make sure the lines are perfectly clean.  In addition along Lakeshore Blvd. just south of the Timberlake border is the Lakeshore drainage system which I am suggesting also be cleaned all the way to its outlet at Corporation Creek and especially to the intersection at Erie Road. This will stop some of the back up because I think there is a lot of sediment in that pipe where it outlets into Corporation Creek. The second recommendation is – because it is a standalone area – Galalina and putting a pumping station along Galalina Blvd. – a singular one to replace the three that exist and which are vastly undersized for that area.  This area goes underwater on a regular basis – on a one year storm which is a fairly common storm that area goes underwater and the water needs to be pumped out.  There is no gravity flow to the lake or river – along with piping.  As we are suggesting things we are moving out in time.  For example, if you bid the cameraing and cleaning today the contracts would not be in place until June and the work would not start until July and would take until December.  These are not necessarily short term items. For Galalina the preliminary designs and costing would start now and I would probably make application to OPWC for funds to offset some of the costs so we have more money for our stormwater and the physical construction would not be until mid-year 2016.  As we are moving out in time a couple of things will happen.  Willoughby is currently working on their master drainage plan which affects us because it affects Corporation Creek.  There are some recommendations into Willoughby now to work on the basin alongside Route 2 and the basin on the far side of the railroad tracks almost opposite Route 2.  Right now those basins that can take water on are not working properly.  Willoughby is prioritizing what they need to do with their system but we may decide to revise our work plans to work along Corporation Creek so we can key in with Willoughby’s efforts on Corporation Creek.  That has an effect on Northcoast Pointe condos and Edison/Modamin.  Those are the first areas I think we should concentrate on and we will move forth in time we start looking at the other areas – for example, North and South Riverview which drain to Corporation Creek.  As we move to other areas of the City such as the East 332^nd and Alva area which is affected by the bus garage and seems only to be affected when we have exceedingly heavy rains – the runoff cuts across the back side of Alva and into Willowick.  What I am trying to get out of this evening’s meeting is what kind of path you would like to take in addressing the stormwater.  This is the path I felt would work best. As to cost I tried to be a little high rather than low.  For televising it would be around $150,000 – $200,000 to go in and televise the areas and get them clean.  I am expecting cleaning to be heavier in Lakeshore Blvd. system as we get down by the outlet at Corporation Creek.  Galalina could be as little as $800,000 or up to $1.5 million depending on how much piping you want to use once you get the pump station. The pump station itself is $600,000 to $800,000.  Galalina is rather flat – there will have to be sewers dropped in to pick up the water from the ends and bring it to the pump stations.  That is fairly costly.  There are a number of things that can happen with Corporation Creek – and it is not yet in an order of precedence – there are some restrictions in terms of culverts that exist by the treatment plant and on the four barrel culvert in heavy storms.  There are some things we can do along side of the railroad which would be on the Erie Road side of the railroad.  From Lakeshore Blvd. towards the CEI entrance half the drainage flows from the railroad tracks to Lakeshore Blvd. and contributes to Corporation Creek.  We can reverse that flow and dig a ditch that goes backwards to the entrance to the plant and exits to Corporation Creek a little bit later where a pipe crosses at the plant driveway and the WPCC.  This would take some pressure off of Corporation Creek.   Just after North and South Riverview it looks like there is an old drainage way that leads to the river and Corporation Creek and it could be dredged straight out into the river so some of the flow would shunt off of Corporation Creek and go to the river rather than go all the way to the Erie Road/Lakeshore Blvd. intersection.  This is to try to control the flow into the Northcoast Pointe condos and Edison/Mondamin.  The biggest contributor overall is what is happening in Willoughby with these two basins because they are not working as they were initially designed.  Corporation Creek gets a lot more flow than it should at its headwater and that carries all the way down and affects us being able to drain North and South Riverview and Erie Road/Lakeshore Blvd.  I am proposing if Willoughby gets their priorities set and if it works out to be working on the basins not only can we combine our efforts with them and work similarly on these items that affect Corporation Creek rather than doing item number 3. 

 

Mr. Evers: I thought Willoughby had said they were going to start another catch basin.

 

Mr. Gwydir: They are looking at their existing detention basins. Instead of the flow being detained in the basins it is making its way to Corporation Creek and as such it is making it to the Lakeshore Blvd./Erie Road area at one time and that area is under water during heavy rain events.  As we are talking about drainage we will theoretically design drainage systems for a certain intensity storm.  It could be a 10 year/2 hour storm or a 20 year storm.  I don’t expect it to be greater than that but if you have a storm the likes of 2006 nothing is going to stop it.  It will not stop the flooding of a 500 year storm.  You can never say this will stop all flooding. It will stop flooding during what we would say statistically a normal storm. I put this together based on what I know and put the priorities at what I know. There is nothing set in stone that says you have to choose that path.  If you want to make another area a priority that could be done.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio:  Mr. Gwydir, I think you did great.  You have a lot of the flooding issues I have heard about over the years covered.  I know you mentioned the $460,000 a year – what happens if we do not spend the entire amount a year?  Does the reserve carry-over?

 

Mr. Gwydir: It is my understanding that it does carry over.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio:  Regarding recommendation #2 – the construction of the pump station would be about $1.5 million?

 

Mr. Gwydir:  It could conceivably be more.  It is a matter of how much you want to sewer the area.  The pump station is pretty well set in the neighborhood of $600,000 – $800,000 per the 2012 estimate.  They are talking about a 12 foot diameter precast station 22 feet deep at the edge of the lake – that is not a small feat.  There are three right now which are very small and are overwhelmed in a 1 year storm.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio:  If it is $1.5 million would we have to wait for three years for that amount to accumulate at $500,000 per year or can you apply for grants?

 

Mr. Gwydir:  First, that will probably be spent in the course of a couple years.  In two years you will build up at least $1 million or more. There is the opportunity according to the County to leverage ahead.

 

Mayor Morley:  There is a pool of money – all the money from the County for the cities. Willowick has borrowed ahead for their project.  If the County looks at it as an idea that can be accomplished we can borrow ahead because they know the money will be coming in.  With all the years we collected the $6 this is almost $680,000 in the first year.  The $480,000 – $500,000 is 70% because we want to have a cushion like we do with the road levy funds.  Actually they believe we will get almost $680,000 but we want to be safe in saying $500,000 in case something goes wrong or there is some other issue that pops up.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: So we want to submit as much as we can to get as close to the $500,000 as we can.

 

Mr. Gwydir:  I think realistically it would be pretty easy to spend past that fairly quickly. In my thoughts Corporation Creek was one of the things that affect quite a number of people but there are a lot of moving parts to Corporation Creek so rather than spending a whole lot of money and borrow way ahead if we can work with Willoughby – part of that money is money they are obtaining as a joint project and it will be used for both communities.  It gets a little more bang for the buck.  Willoughby is prioritizing what they want to work on so I do not want to jump ahead and do things on Corporation Creek ahead of that if we can get a fairly good bang out of what they will do – and, we can then spend money elsewhere.

 

Mayor Morley:  That was part of the study we okayed last year with Willoughby.  If we can work together to get Corporation Creek done and that is joint money then that takes care of a lot of problems at this end of town and we can use the money for the other areas.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio:  So we are thinking of doing #1 and #2.

 

Mayor Morley:  #1 and #2 – absolutely.  I know Willoughby is going out for bid for the cameraing and cleaning. Mr. Gwydir and I are going to talk about whether there is some way to get the two cities together to get a better rate.  I am looking from you to see if this is the route we want to go – that you will be okay with the bids if Mr. Gwydir gets them ready. Obviously we have to come to you for approval after we go out for bids. I want to make sure you are all okay with the route we are going.  Mr. Gwydir has been working on this for a while. Everyone who looks at the map knows those are our problem areas. From our end we want to get things done to show that one of the reasons we joined the County was to have more resources. 

 

Mr. Gwydir: There are portions of this that I would like to study as an engineer but I would rather get to the things that are affecting people – that is the purpose – pick up a couple of things we can do right away and get your permission to proceed on it.  So we can attack the problems we have. Each time I make a recommendation over the next couple of years we will meet again for your approval. Each step will take a few years. It does not happen overnight.

 

Ms. Vaughn:  I have been told the sewers on Glen and Iris have been televised and cleaned. What is the difference between us doing it and someone else doing it?

 

Mr. Gwydir: None, if they have all be televised and cleaned we can get a list from the Service Department of what streets have been done and take them off the list.

 

Mr. Rubertino: We have not been out there this year.

Ms. Vaughn: No, but you have been there.

 

Mr. Rubertino:  We have been out there two or three times.  It is peace of mind for the residents to see us looking.

 

Ms. Vaughn: The point I am making is if you are talking about contracting for someone to televise and clean Glen and Iris I know our Sewer Department has taken care of that area.  Will this being done by someone else make it any better?

 

Mr. Gwydir: If it has been cleaned it will not make it any better.  You would not want to reclean the areas.

 

Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins: Mr. Rubertino, what is the routine for televising and cleaning the lines? Do you do it throughout the whole City every year?

 

Mr. Rubertino:  I am not going to tell you that we do the whole City every year. We try to give our attention to the problem areas more than anything else.  We check them on a regular basis.  We do not have the manpower to do the whole City. We try to go by complaints and we have certain areas we do on a regular basis and they are checked because of the issues with the water problems.  Are we behind on those areas – probably.

 

Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins: If you have a solid list of what you have done so far you could provide it to Mr. Gwydir so they do not have to be duplicated.

 

Mr. Rubertino: You must remember since last fall we have not done any and there have been leaves and they need cleaned – whether it is us or them and how extensive would have to be determined.  Will we be able to get them cleaned in a timely fashion? Not a chance.  This is compounded by the fact that leaves are not being picked up by residents.  It creates a problem and we are going to have to look at enforcement for leaf pickup. That is in the ditch area and is not to be confused with the storm sewer. To keep up with it on a timely basis is not realistic. We try to hit the main areas that we know are problem areas.

 

Ms. Vaughn: Will the gravel that comes from potholes get washed into the storm sewers?

 

Mr. Rubertino: Some of it will. But, that is usually not the biggest factor. We will be cleaning that up in the next couple of weeks as we do every year. 

 

Mayor Morley:  We have our people out cleaning and get two weeks of street sweeping and cleaning of storm sewers from the Stormwater Utility. We will use our group and the County and get the biggest bang for the buck. We are paying for it and need to use those resources.  We are getting our two weeks scheduled.  If we move ahead and get a rain like the one on July 20^th maybe it will not be as bad.

 

Ms. DePledge:  Mr. Gwydir, you highlighted the map with color?

 

Mr. Gwydir:  The green color is so you could show how the stormwater drains in that particular area.

 

Ms. DePledge: When you identify problem areas and prioritize them you show them by the red dots?

 

Mr. Gwydir: The red dots are people who have experienced flooding. 

 

Ms. DePledge:  What I am concerned about is that five members of Council have houses that are on this map.  I want to make sure for the record that you made this decision without input from any City Council member – there is no favoritism.  And you did not select this area based on that.

 

Mr. Gwydir: No, Mam.

 

Ms. DePledge: I have had no conversation with you about these lines and I am sure no one else has.

 

Mr. Gwydir: The map presents a flow area from its beginnings to its exit.  So, when you look at people who are flooding you want to look for the confluence of sewers coming together – in Grovewood there is a confluence of sewers – there is something going on. On the other hand if you look at Freed they are at the top of the line – there is not a lot of drainage and they are flooding.  I am not certain I understand why.  In a preliminary televising a couple of years ago we did not find a lot of debris. I do not understand why those people are flooding.

 

Ms. DePledge:  My question was if anyone on Council tried to sway your input on where you made these lines?

 

Mr. Gwydir:  I would suggest to you that in my tenure as City Engineer no one from City Council has every suggested that I do anything of the sort.

 

Ms. DePledge: Thank you because it is going to come up.

 

Mayor Morley:  If you look at this we have addressed the main concerns. We have met with the residents of the problem areas and are looking at everything.  Mr. Gwydir looked at this and identified the problems. You don’t live at any of those pick circles.

 

Ms. DePledge:  This identifies the areas and I wanted it to be clear that it is need based and it will give us the biggest bang for the buck in improving water flow and that is the only reason it has been identified.

 

Mr. Gwydir: That is the reason – to try to understand what is happening in that area – why it is flooding.

 

Mr. Rubertino: How do we identify these houses?

Ms. DePledge:  They must have called.

 

Mr. Rubertino: Did they call you?  Is this off of our list?

 

Mayor Morley: We had meetings with Freed …

 

Mr. Rubertino: These are the ones we have had contact with?

 

Mayor Morley:  Yes.

 

Comments could not be understood due to multiple conversations at the same time.

 

Mr. Mastrocola: … this has been going on since the Becker Administration.  When I televised it I did not see anything.  There were some mineral deposits chocking a little bit but the 60” main was not doing anything. I did clean it up but I did not see anything.  My next thing was the detention pond.  It is going into there – what is it doing? All from Glen and Iris flows to Roberts and out to that pond.

 

Mr. Gwydir: Or it does not get to the pond. That is one of the things we are thinking about…

 

Comments could not be understood due to background conversation at the same time.

 

Mr. Gwydir:  We are thinking about there is sufficient elevation to fill that pond – if we raise it up and put an orifice on the railroad side.  We say that very guardedly because the condos are sitting on an ash dump.  I do not know the elevation of the soil or material underneath those condos.  It would be a neat idea to use that pond and put an additional 5-10 feet of water into the pond in a storm but due to the fly ash if the condos end up on Lakeshore Blvd. it would not look so good. Those are things that temper our thoughts.

 

Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins:  Are there any questions? Committee?

 

Mr. Evers:  I am in favor of moving forward.

 

Mayor Morley: There is no legislation needed. We are just looking for approval for Mr. Gwydir to start working on some bids.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: I am all for going out for bids.  Mr. Gwydir, you will get together with the Service Department to see if there is something we do not have to do because they have a record of it?

 

Mr. Gwydir: Yes.  I prefer not to redo things.

 

Ms. Vaughn:  As long as we are moving this forward based on your recommendations of #1, #2 and #3?  Where does Corporation Creek fit in there?  Between #1 and #2?

 

Mr. Gwydir: #1 and #2 would be sufficient for now.  Implementation of items #1 and #2 would produce rapid results. Comments could not be clearly understood due to background noise. If that gets done we anticipate working Corporation Creek in before item #3. 

 

Ms. Vaughn: In other words you are recommending going with the study with the potential of including Corporation Creek between item #2 and #3. I am all for it.

 

Mrs., Quinn-Hopkins:  The Committee approves moving forward with recommendation #1 and #2 for now.  Right?

 

Mr. Evers: Yes, I am all for it.

 

Mr. Rubertino:  We are talking about moving forward with #1 and #2 this year?

 

Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins: Yes.

 

Mr. Gwydir: Going out for bid for televising and cleaning would be #1 – the preparation of the bid package would take about a month and the award would take two months and then the work would take a few months and we will start looking closer at Galalina – review the study and get together a plan and then come back and meet again for approval to proceed. That, if approved, would not be until at least 2016.  In the interim I am expecting Willoughby to come through with some items so we can see how much money is going out and then we will revisit what we are using. 

 

Mr. Hoefle:  You say the target date for #1 would be from June through December. How many hours are estimated to camera and clean for a street like Glen?

 

Mr. Mastrocola:  About a week and one half.

 

Mr. Gwydir: There is about 3,000 feet of sewer. It takes some time because there are set ups at each manhole – to drag the camera through and tape and record. They would do a light cleaning before that.

 

Mr. Mastrocola: Probably two weeks for a two man crew – maybe longer – depending on what we run into – it is hard to give estimation.  The set ups – the truck itself – the amount of water the truck holds – it is tedious.

 

Mr. Rubertino: That is just one side.

 

Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins:  I can’t help thinking that we own the truck – is using the truck something we can do with part-time help?

 

Ms. Vaughn: We can’t use part-time help with the Union contracts.

 

Mr. D’Ambrosio: Not with that piece of equipment.

Mr. Rubertino: It is a quarter of a million dollar machine.

 

Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins: Mr. Gwydir, would they give us a discount for using our equipment?

 

Mr. Gwydir: I would not recommend that.

 

Mr. Rubertino: You mean allowing them to use our equipment?

 

Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins: Yes.

 

Mr. Rubertino: No, a company is not going to want to do that – they will not bid a job using our equipment. It will free us up to do other areas.

 

Mrs. Quinn-Hopkins:  Sure, we would hire this portion to be done and your guys would continue with other areas.

 

There were no further questions or comments.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

There was no miscellaneous.

 

RECOGNITION OF THE PUBLIC 

There was no one who wished to speak.

 

The meeting was adjourned at approximately 6:49 p.m.                   

 

 

dac

 

 

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