WPCC COMMITTEE MEETING

FEBRUARY 24, 2016

 

 

The joint WPCC meeting was held at the Eastlake City Hall. Chair and City of Willoughby Mr. Harrold opened the meeting at approximately 6:00 p.m.

 

In attendance from the City of Eastlake: Chair Mr. Spotton, Members Mr. Meyers, Mr. Kasunick, Council-at-Large/Vice President Mr. Hoefle, Councilwoman-at-Large/ President Ms. DePledge , Council Clerk Mrs. Simons and Eastlake City Engineer Tom Gwydir. 

 

In attendance from the City of Willoughby: Councilman and Willoughby WPCC Chair Bob Harrold, Bob Carr, Chris Wooding, Service Director Angelo Thomeselli, Willoughby City Engineer Jim Sayles and Council President Jerome Ranally.  Also present were WPCC Plant Superintendent Jack Gorka, Assistant Superintendent John Hall and Industrial Associate Diana Passwaiter. Also in attendance was Council Clerk Mrs.Novak.

 

ANNUAL REPORT: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Mr. Gorka: I have a prop and today it is the Equalizationual flow force main. This is not used it is a new one.  I know that we always talk about the different stuff and sometimes you don’t get to see what we put into the ground.  We have replaced a whole section of it along with this piece. It will last forever. Today we will go over the annual report and it will be in the Executive Summary.  Anytime anybody has any questions please feel free to ask.  If there is anything in the annual summary that you have a question about please ask.  I will try and zip through these.  We are going to be starting with item number one and it the Eastlake Port Authority and it is the boat ramp.  Currently there isn’t anybody that I know of who…boat ramp.  The Port Authority doesn’t have anyone who is carring kiaks or anything like that.  The Salmon Club is still there.  As far as I know there isn’t an official Police with them that there should be for any property that is…the WPCC’s.  It has been like that for a long time.  They are harmless and they do not take up much space and we don’t even notice them.  I never see anybody over there. Item number two is the water mian. 

 

Mr. Woodin: I’m sorry Mr. Gorka this is pertaining to item one with the Eastlake Port Authority that is over there. We went ahead and did a survey on that property and I was told that we were selling a protion.  It is selling not leasing.

 

Mr. Thomeselli: That is news to us.

 

Mr. Gorka: Yeah. I didn’t know that. 

 

Ms. DePledge: I am the Council President for the City of Eastlake and I am also the former Port Authority Liaison as of with Mr. Woodin.

 

Mr. Woodin: You’re not doing that anymore.

 

Ms. DePledge: No because I am the President now and now it is Mr. Kasuncik. He is the new Liaison.  But over the last few years it has always been my understanding that it was going to be leased.  That they really do not have the money to purchase it unless they looking at getting a new grant.  Mr. Kasuncik do you have any information on it?

 

Mr. Kasunick: My understanding is that they want to do a land swap. They own six acers in the vicinity as well but they want to own that.  I think that it isn’t actually a sale like you had said but what they want to do is a land swap.  It would be this land here for this land there.

 

Mr. Woodin: Correct.

 

Mr. Kasunick: That is what it is. The reason that they that…it wouldn’t be a problem with the lease as it is but apparently there is a grant that Chagrin Water Shed Project and they are willing to work with us on.  The issue with the ownership is preventing that for some reason and I don’t understand why but I guess that’s what it is.

 

Mr. Woodin: As apposed to leasing the property they felt that if they owned that parcel of land that would count with the grants.

 

Mr. Thomeselli: Where is the land that they want to swap is it in Mentor?

 

Mr. Kasunick: No it is right in that area.

 

Mr. Thomeselli: Right next to the plant…it will not be any good because our plant. The land that we are keeping…the reason why we are leasing it is just in case we have to do the expansion down there.  We have to have the land to do the expansion and that is the reason why we are leasing it. I don’t know we will have to talk about it.

 

Mr. Woodin: With the Port Authority leasing a portion of the property and with them having certain things that are for profit it will not cause a taxable event to the WPCC Plant.

 

Ms. DePledge: Right now it is City property and initially it was a non-for-profit that was operating in there. The concern was what if it was interepreted to be a business entity and what would be the tax ramifications.  It then became clear to the Port Authority that they needed to segregate that sector of land.  That is why they had the survey and to my recollection is that and I haven’t been to a meeting since December is that they were still looking to lease.  But if they are looking to do a swap or a purchase that is still on the table.

 

Mr. Gorka: As far as I know no one has approached us in regards to that…from the City of Willoughby or anything like that. I haven’t heard anything about that.  I did get an email from the Lake County Port Authority stating that they were interested in being involved in that whole process down there.  I really haven’t heard anything from them since.

 

Ms. DePledge: I was interested to hear about the WPCC expanding. It was my understanding that they couldn’t expand because of the electrical and all of the other utilities that are underground.  Is that still possible?

 

Mr. Thomeselli: One of the things that were suggested was to domb the front.

 

Mr. Gorka: When the equalizationualization tank was proposed it was out front and it was in front of the easement of the power lines. I don’t know if the Engineer’s want to jump in as to whether we could actually work within the easement or underneath an easement. 

 

Ms. DePledge: So if you are looking to domb out the front of it then I don’t believe that this is anywhere near the area where the Port Authority is looking to do what they are attempting to do. That clears up that issue if it becomes one.

 

Mr. Gorka: The point is that if somebody wants to make some formal proposal then I will speak for the City.  As it is now if any activites that happen or taxable events they have to be subleased.  That is the last thing that I remember and the Law Departments are working on sub…breaking out a piece of the land.  They get a taxable portion in and around the Salmon Club area.  That is where all of the activity usually takes place for the Law Department.

 

Ms. DePledge: The Salmon Club and there are little slips for the canues and kiaks and there is also a boat ramp area. It is in that general vicinity and it is a good distantce from you facility.

 

Mr. Gorka: I just want to throw it out there for everybody and that is the only piece of Public River in that entire area. Everything else is owned by somebody.  Just bare in mind that if we want to have public access it is the only place.

 

2. Water Main Line Servicing

Mr. Gorka: Number two is a water main and we have talked about that before.  It is really old and we did have success in finding the easement for it.  We now know where the easement is where we want to replace it in kind of the same spot.  We haven’t determined that.  The one option is to come back through Gilbert Dr. and around the back.  It is not leaking now but it is something that we were made aware of before.  We are still doing the plant stress test and we will talk about that.  The thought that any kind of work that we would do around the plant we would include this water line replacement.   They are at least 55 years old and we are not sure exactly when they went in but it could be between 1950 and 1960.  It had a problem before and we would like to at least replace it. We didn’t put that into the budget anywhere.  So if anything it would be part of some near future plant activites that are related to the stress test.  The NPDES permit we had performed within our expected peramiters.  We did have a bad streach for a couple of months in the spring time.  It was some sort of biological activity that rendered us unable to settle very well.  We tried everything that we could think of.  All of the methodologis and we even included a few tip from the engineers.  Eventually it worked itself out and now it is gone.  In my 37 years and collectively I think that we had over 120 years of experience trying to solve the problem. 

 

Mr. Carr: This was an issue within the plant itself?

 

Mr. Gorka: Yes it was within the plant itself. It was purely settleability.  We could talk about it for a long time.  Other than that the plant performs very well other than what happened in those couple of months there.  The average flow is 6.1 million a day.  Item number five was that we got the report back from the U.S. EPA.  I think that everyone is sort of aware of it.  They had a lot of finds in difficentcies and potential difficentcies.  We responded in kind in April and that is in your Annual Summary where you can look at the responses.  Basically they want us to implement a maintenance program within the collection system.  Capacity maintaince and…that is what their driving force was.  We responded with SOP’s and what we were planning on doing.  The biggest part of it was and most of it was already done.  They care more about documentation.  You say what you are going to do and do what you say and then you write it down.  As a follow up to that we responded for Willoughby and Eastlake collection system data WPCC.  The U.S. EPA has responded back to Eastlake and said in their letter not us but for Eastlake to respond to these action items there were fifteen of them.  We have a couple copies here and Ms. Passwaiter has them if you are interested in looking at them.  That Eastlake should be working on.  I know that Mr. Mastrocola received them.  They sent them directly to Mr. Mastrocola and it was for the Collections System Operator.  It didn’t go to the Service Director they sent them to him.  I think that it is something that your City Engineer needs to look into.  Make sure that you respond appropriately.  The U.S. EPA does not go away.  They are going to want these items addressed.  I mentioned it here and the responses went there.  Something that you should bare in mind is that you need to do what ever they are asking you to do.

 

Mr. Gwydir: I am working with Mr. Mastrocola in response to that letter.

 

6. Outfall Diffuser

Mr. Gorka: We will talk about the Outfall Diffuser when we get to the Projects.

 

7. OEPA

Mr. Gorka: We got a new NPDES permit which is item number seven and it was effective on March 1^st.  It has started the clocks ticking on a lot of projects that some people are aware of and for some people who are not aware of them.  I will zip through them really quick and then we will have a projects follow up for the items on the agenda under number three.  Some of the things that they have asked us to do a quick stress test on the plant.  It was to try and see how much water we can push through the plant without having to increase the size of the plant.  In the different areas we have adjusted the gates and opened the plant to take in more than 20 million on peak.  Currently we are taking on 24 million.  It is preventing about 35% to 40% of the bypass that what would happen in the past does not happen.  We are taking it into the plant.  We haven’t notices any adverse affects.  We are trying to document them. Once we have all of these things in place it stopped raining.  So we have had one event and today was a near event and we were almost at 24 million.  We are trying to collect data so that we can go back to the EPA and say this is what we have accomplished with the stress testing on the plant taking in more water.  A couple of things that the Engineer’s are looking at in regards to that are…we have the capacity within the plant to absorb some of these peak flows.  Rather than building…tank outside of the plant.  Can we take it inside and absorb it in there and that is what we are evaluating with on that.  With the items themselves we have to get a determination as to what we want to do by September 1^st of this year.  We need the rain so that we can get some good data points.  A new EQUALIZATION tank is requalizationuired on Quentin Rd and they wanted an approvable permit to install by March 1^st.  The Waverly Rd. relief sewer was put on a clock running.  They need a PTI by March 1, 2018 for the Waverly relief sewer.  Outside of the existing permit cycle they want us to update our SSES that we have talked about numerous times over the years.  That would have to be done by March 1, 2021. After the changes that we are going to put into place they are going to see how well they are working as far as eliminating bypasses.  In a little bit we will talk about all of these projects and were they are in a little bit. 

 

9. New NPDES Permit Requalizationuitrements

Mr. Gorka: The new permit cycle and all of these new things is that they added more toxicity testing and we have talked about that for five years. We had limited toxicity before and they have added some more.  We successfully got them repeat some of it.  We still have to do two tests in the summer.  We can kind of eliminate some of the ammonia within the plant and it is designed to do that.  Every now and then we can develop the ammonia bacteria.  When you move the ammonia and it is not by design because the plant is not designed to do that but we have been very lucky.  I am hoping that we can get our data points in when we are not toxic so that they don’t continue to push us down.  The plant is not designed to eliminate ammonia and if we have to do that then we will have to change the way that the plant is and that could be very expensive.  The way that the plant is designed now we cannot eliminate ammonia.  So we have that at the end of the permit cycle.

 

Mr. Carr: Mr. Gorka could I ask you a question about the peak flow it is item number eight.

 

Mr. Gorka: That was a stress test.

 

Mr. Carr: You are saying that now we are at 24 million but a minute ago you said that we had a near bypass event today. So am I reading this right that we have made some changes already to get to 24 million where it used to be 20 million?  Today you didn’t bypass but you would have previously?

 

Mr. Gorka: Yes. Like I have said roughly about 35% to 40% of what we use the bypasses is not being bypassed.  My approach with the whole stress test is to push to the EPA…rather than to spend any more money is that we are accomplishing that and is it good enough.  Lets see what they say after September 1^st when we push that to them.  And we tell them that we think that we are doing pretty well.

 

Mr. Carr: What you are saying is that there still some more testing to do and that it could possibly get better than this.  But we are not sure.

 

Mr. Gorka: We will just have more data. I want to be able to tell them the effluent quality doesn’t degrade very much between 20 and 24 million.  We are doing some sampling in that window to see what the effluent quality is.  They give us a permit based on nine and a half million and to certain loadings to the lake.  If we are going to increase our loading up to 24 million I want the EPA to give me different criteria to follow verses the one that we have now.  I can petition them for that too at the same to say give us some more leaway and to say look at what we did.  We are bypassing that much less is it good enough.  The gut feeling with the EPA is that the usual answer is no because they want zero discharge.  I think that is the approach that we can take that will by us time or to start the dialog with to come up with other solutions.  In the mean time we are going to look at other options from the Engineer’s stand point.  To give them…I really don’t think that we want do…we can try to use stuff within the plant but we are never going to get to zero discharge.  Unless we build a 20 million EQUALIZATION tank out front but we are evaluating all of that.

 

Mr. Carr: Thank you.

 

11. Invoices for extra strength wastes

Mr. Gorka: I think that we are going to have one in the near future. We call them and when ever you talk to them it puts them on the radiar.  Then they are coming to the plant to do a compliance inspect and we will see what they have to say.  With the extra safe waste we are talking about the surcharges. It was at $432,000 last year with people dumping extra strength waste.  That is over and above normal domestic sewage.  It is all of you industrial and commercial establishments that are not prohibited but if they dump them than we charge them for it.  Because they are putting extra strain on our system and they should pay for it.  The stuff that we aginise over half a penny a difference every year adds up to $30,000.00.  That is why I sent the memo out. 

 

12. Routine Maintenance Activities

Mr. Gorka: Industry is pretty good and I think that we have a well educated industrial base. You can see that have over 1,400 samples we only had sixteen violations.  Everybody knows what they need to do.  Most of the ones are usually minor…some equalizationuipment that they have pretreatment failed.  Maintenance is always a routine thing at the plant but what we do is more than routine maintenance.  Our maintenance department is awesome. One of the big highlights this year is that we removed two two tone blowers out of the aeration basement. Just construting what was necessary to lift the things up to get them off of the pedistals and into position to where we could get them somewhere to lift them out.  Then ship them off and bring them back.  It was a lot of fun.  A maintenance staff member is here with us this evening.  They do amazing stuff.  Our staff is awesome.  Speaking of which we are at item number thirteen we are down to seventeen full-time staff members.  We have reduced it by five in the last five years.  That is quit a bit when you think about the foot print of people anymore.  With the shrinking of the work force all of this is in part to the going to single shifts.  We talked about a couple of years ago.  Down in automation we don’t need two guys down there.  One guy can sits in the command post and looks at the entire plant along with a virtual tour of the plant to see what is going on.  That is technology for you.

 

Mr. Thomeselli: When you start losing the guys that can do what you have just said.

 

Mr. Gorka: I know that the Engineer’s are on record with that. We have been blessed with awesome staff.  How do you replace guys who are that hands on, knowledgeable and who are willing to go above and beyond everyday.  It is not easy to replace people like that.  We have a great group of people with us. I was one of those kids once.  We had thirty one people at one time. 

 

Ms. Passwaiter: When I started 29 years ago it was up to thirty one people.

 

Mr. Thomeselli: And now you are down to seventeen.

 

Mr. Gorka: And two part-time people. Hardly anything bad ever happened at the WPCC last year. Most of the time they are slips and that is because of the slippery floors. 

 

15. 2016 Budget

Mr. Gorka: This year’s budget is 3.2 million dollars. We were higher than last years requalizationuest.  All of the increases are the replacement fund and it went up $100,000.00.  Last year it went up $100,000.00 in 2016 and another $100,000.00 in 2017.  It is pretty much squing all of the percentages and everything.  Last year’s expenditures was the same way they were higher where the $100,000.00 was the replacement fund and the twenty seventh pay. 

 

16. Replacement Fund

Mr. Gorka: It is the discussion of the replacement fund and what it replaces from the joint facilities that are in there.

 

17. Flow meters

Mr. Gorka: they are at a rock solid 58.42. It seems like no matter what we do that is where it always settles into.  We calibrate quarterly and it gives us a chance to have the engineer’s at the plant to inspect.  Along with talk about projects and to look at the things that we are doing and they keep an eye on us and they are informed about everything that we are doing.

 

18 Capital I mprovements Projects

Mr. Gorka: We had capital improvements and they were the #3 final clarifier and the chemical ferrous tank that we had replaced. We talked about that last year but it was carried over to this year.  The last was the mix hold tank and it was rehabbed so that entire project is closed out.  It was originally estimated at around $500,000.00 and we came in at $392,000.00.  We did a lot of the work in house and the ferrous tank we considered it a non-performing and we repaired it with our own maintenance staff.  Finally we replace four of the chemical pumps and we have two more that need replaced.  We just talked about the aeration blowers and once again we had two of them halled out.  Out of the two blowers we rebuilt on of them and we had to buy a new one.  That budget was originally for two new ones and the cost was $94,000.00 but ended up at $51,600.00.  That was for a new one and rebuilding the other one.

 

19. 2016 Replacement Projects

Mr. Gorka: the new replacement requalizationuest for this year is that we need an inline grinder for the mix/hold sludge processing. That budget is for $45,000.00 and that will come out of the replacement fund. 

 

20. Maintain Plant design flow

Mr. Gorka: It has been there forever and will always be there. Our goal is to get no leakage in the system.  It will never happen but…with every collection system.  Are there any questions in general on the annual report?

 

Mr. Harrold: Very well put together Mr. Gorka. Are there any questions for Mr. Gorka about anything that he just discussed?

 

2. WPCC Expense Allocation

Mr. Gorka: We thought that since we had some new people that we would go over how the expenses with the WPCC work.  All that we have is the base expense.  Operation and maintenance is based on the flow split.  We meter the flow for Willoughby and Eastlake and then we come up with an actual amount of water that comes from each respective City.  The operation and maintance part of the budget and it is in the annual report that part is based on the flow split.  So 58% of the operation and maintance is paid by Willoughby and 42% is paid by Eastlake.  It is strictly on flow split so everything that is operation and maintance is divided up that way.  A while back we decided to create a replacement fund for the larger items or the capital items that were bought and paid for with 50/50 money.  All capital assets are paid for equalizationually by Willoughby and Eastlake.  In a capital event 50% will come from each City.  Both cities joinly own the property.  Half of the stuff that is down there is Eastlake’s and half is Willoughby’s.  Along time age they created a replacement fund that is 50/50 money and it is the $100,000.00 in increase.  We did an evaluation about three to four years ago on expected replacement costs for the future.  We set up a pretty good spreadsheet that you see repeats every 20 years on most things.  We try and streach it between 20 to 25 years on what we can and it usually needs to be replaced by that time.  We set up a structure to start feeding the replacement accounts so that all of these things can be done out of the replacement fund.  Where all we will need is the approval to move ahead with stuff and know that no new money is going to be needed at those points because the replacement fund will be funded to some dollar amount that will absorb all of it. 

 

Mr. Gwydir: Those are showing that this is for us and they are all shown in Appendix H. It is the Long Term Replacement Fund and it goes by year.  You will see a listing of equalizationuipment on the side and all of the dollar values. There is some that we show the money being contributed by each City in that replacement fund.  That is where the figures and the need for the dollar amount that is being contributed arose from.

 

Mr. Gorka: We make this every year and we edit out the stuff that gets done or if we carry stuff out from other years. This is like a living document that once we get a feel for things we know that in 22 years from now or in12 years from that it will have to be rebuilt.  We are starting to create this plan for the replacement money to pay for all of the things that we want.  It will be easier to plan for it because we will have the money set aside.  The other aspect of it is that if there are any new capitals which is some of the projects that we are going to talk about today it is also 50/50 money also.  The Quentin Road Equalizationualization Tank does not exist and the land that we need to buy is not ours.  All of that has to be purchased and it also has to be 50/50 money.  Those are the capital assets and they all become part of the WPCC Joint Facilities.  In your Annual Report there is a general definition of the joint facilities along with all of the things that are joint facilities.  The equalizationualization tanks and the Erie Road trunk sewers over time all of these things were paid for jointly and added to the joint facilities.  Whether the Outfall Sewer that we are going to be talking about is built and paid for Eastlake and it was donated to the joint facility and it became a 50/50 asset.  The same goes for the plant, the land and with everything and over time and that is where we are.  That is how the joint facilities got to footprint that you see in your book.  There are pieces of the force main along with the Lakeshore Sewers and they are all joint facalities.  They either have common water running through them or they were constructed with the joint money. 

 

Mr. Sayles: That is the most important way to look at it. The first critera is that if both cities are flowing through the pipe, or the pump station or the equalizationualization basin that is a joint facility.  The second one is and this is in respect to the other equalizationualization basins that are probably taking flow from Eastlake or from Willoughby, but they are necessary for the treatment plant to function properly that those need to be joint facilities too.  This was decided back in the 1980’s because it was critical to the plant so that it could function properly.  Back then both of the Council’s and the Administration’s from both cities said to add that to the criteria.

 

Mr. Carr: Are all equalizationualization basin’s joint or are there some that are only for the City?

 

Mr. Sayles: They are all joint facilities and I think that there are five of them now.

 

Mr. Gorka: There may only be Willoughby or Eastlake water sitting in one of the facilities but we jointly maintane and take care of them.

 

Mr. Sayles: Like I said they are necessary for the operation of the treatment plant to prevent the bypassing.

 

Mr. Gorka: Just a quick recap for the newer members. The equalizationualization tanks hold the water because we can’t take it.  So the water gets backed up into the system until we can treat it rather than it being bypassed. 

 

Mr. Sayles: Water is a polite term.

 

Mr. Gorka: That is the…on cost on item number two.

 

Mr. Sayles: Quentin Road will be the sixth equalizationualization basin that will be part of the joint facility.

 

Mr. Gorka: That brings us to item number three.

 

3. Projects Update

Mr. Gorka: We can start anywhere you guys want and any of you can jump in at any given time. 

 

Mr. Gwydir: In Appendix D in the report the SSES summary it lays out a number of things that we have found in 2011 that need to be done to the system. They consisted of those equalizationualization basins that we keep speaking of.  I am also speaking about a number of relief sewers along with speaking about the work that you are doing in the plant.  We this report was turned in the EPA looked at this report.  What they have done is that they have come back over time and said “Okay under the permit that we have today you are going to be requalizationuired to do certain things.”  In this permit cycle we are going to be requalizationuired to do the stress testing, along with some equalizationualization basin clean out, and to build a new equalizationualization basin.  That happens to be at the Quentin Road Pump Station.  We are also going to be requalizationuired to put in a relief sewer along Waverly Road.  They are mandated by the EPA and it is based on this initial SSES study.  At some point towards 2020 and correct me if I am wrong Mr. Gorka…we are going to do an evaluation again on how these things operating.  The purpose of this is to report back to the EPA how well we are doing.  This is with the hope that maybe sometime in the future some of the other expenses that came out of the SSES report that some of them we can make smaller and that maybe we could do it differently.  So at the end of the day we are trying to save money on this course of action because the expenses from now to 2040 will be rather robust for both of the Cities. The OEPA picking off sections at a time to evaluate them and they will let us know.  I expect that in the next permit cycle they will come back and they will let us know that we need to do some of these other types of improvements.  This will be based on the imformation that we gave them.  The thing is to be a good player to the environment but to mitigate our expenses to the amount possible.  That is where these projects are bubbling up from they aren’t being picked randomly out of the air.  There is a very definitive step by step process that the EPA is following.  It is just a continues feed back process as we go forward.

 

Mr. Gorka: There is a visual that is behind you and that came out of the SSES. All of the stars are equalizationualization basins and they are only asking us to build one right now.  That it what came out of that plan.  In a world where there is unlimited funds the EPA could of said to build a whole new one now and as soon as you can.  They didn’t take that approach and I think that they saw the wisdom from some of the discussion that we’ve had with them.  Mr. Gwydir and Mr. Sayles were both involved in those discussions and that we should do some of this stuff and see how it works.  It may midigate some of the other things that we need to do.  The report in 2011 was about fifty eight million dollars worth of stuff.  I think that we are fortunate that they did requalizationuire us to do all of that and that we could do some of this to see how well it works.  Originally they gave us till March 1^st of 2021 to evaluate how well this stuff is that we are going to put in which is the Quentin Road EQUALIZATION tank and the Waverly relief sewer.  How will that work?  Did that change what was happening at the plant?  Which it should.

 

Mr. Sayles: And the results of the stress test. They will take all of that information and they will put it in the system.

 

Mr. Gorka: Even with the stress test and we put in another unknown that we don’t know is what they are going to say about that. They may say now you better go ahead and build that EQUALIZATION tank in front of the plant.  It will depend on how that discussion goes.  That is on the board too and there is a star in front of the plant.  They said instead of doing that why don’t you see how much you can push in. 

 

Mr. Woodin: That is our current hard surface that we have today with the water run off and things of that nature. Maybe is it not looking into for potential areas that can be developed as apposed to…it almost sounds like the absolute minimal cost factor wise for the equalizationualization basins.  But yet it almost seems like we might be chasing our tails if currently always have continues development.  Yet it is always going to be undersized.  I don’t know.

 

Mr. Sayles: All of the analysis includes the anticipated increases in flow.

 

Mr. Woodin: Ok.

 

Mr. Sayles: Actually in Willoughby and Eastlake that is not a lot. There isn’t a lot of undeveloped land that is available in either City to generate lots and lots of future sewage.  You’re talking about pavement and everything that is kind of mixing…but we do project 20 years out is always the projection.

Mr. Woodin: We look at potential areas and what it could be developed as.

 

Mr. Sayles: The reason why Mr. Gorka’s plan was to handle 9.5 million gallons is because in the 1980’s as things were growing in Lake County. The projects at that time were pretty rosey about future people moving into both cities.  That is why we built a 9.5 million gallon treatment plant.  He is adding six and a half and that is thirty five years later.  That development really didn’t happen but you could argue that it is wasting good money.  But if we hadn’t done that you would have more bypasses that wouldn’t be able to handle the 24 million gallon deep flow.  It isn’t wasted money.  It could show you though how we try and project these 20 year increases.  It is based on data…provides a lot of that and the census bureau some of the information as well.  They are guesses but we do try to factor that into all of these projects.

 

Mr. Gorka: And water saving toilets and everyone is saving water where ever they can. We have industries that produce zero discharge.  Everything is internal.

 

Mr. Sayles: For the new Council member do we need anymore history or are you ok with…because he kind of jumped from the 1950’s. There is a lot that went through those years that happened between the two cities.  Mr. Gorka, Thomeselli, Mr. Ranally and I can remember that there were almost fist fights that happened between the two cities. The reason why I am saying it is because all of this has been hashed out and well thought out and how we are sharing these costs.  In my mind it really makes sense as to how we do this between the two communities.  Once we got over the hertal with a lot of it being new to the communities it has really worked well.  This is really a cooperative effort between the two cities to save money where ever we can for both cities. None of these recommendations are good for Willoughby and not good for Eastlake or visa versa.  Mr. Gorka had mentioned that Eastlake put in the outfall and donated it to the WPCC but at that same time Willoughby built the Erie Rd. truck sewer that takes all of the sewage into the plant and they donated that to the WPCC.  That is how they started this project were each City built parts of this network that is all combined into the joint facilities. It is involed into the 50/50 share and the capital costs and close split based share of day to day operations.  A lot of history of struggle, compromise and negotiation and now we are a happy family.

 

Mr. Gwydir: Mr. Gorka did you want to mention that as we move into the current projects the agreements that arise out of these as we go forward.  Because each Council will see these particular agreements and they will be asked to vote on them.

 

Mr. Gorka: It may not be clear to you about what it is but it is all projects that are in the WPCC capital budget. They are things that are already started that are in the early phases. 

 

Mr. Carr: So all of these have been approved?

 

Mr. Gorka: The only way to keep track of all of this stuff is to have the Council actions. Keeping in mind that the rule of thumb is that Eastlake and Willoughby have to approve the expenditure of funds from the replacement fund.  We can’t spend a dime without both Council’s saying that it is ok to spend the money.  That is ususally the first thing to do and then we need to get Engineering done, have to approve the expedeture of engineering to figure out what it is that we are going to build.   If you follow and it may not be totally intuativly obvious but it is my efforts to try and keep track of everything that is going on.  You can see where Council’s have passed the ordinances for a lot of the engineering for the project to be planned and spect.  We have to start some where.  It isn’t the award of the contracts it’s not the…it is kind of the spreadsheet of where we are on all of these different projects.  It drives Ms. Passwaiter crazy.  I send these out to the Finance Director and say that this is what I know not that I am trying to tell anyone how to do their job. This is all that I know to help keep track of all of the different things.

 

Mr. Carr: Only Willoughby has to do a resolution for the funding source and the lands and specs?

 

Mr. Gorka: That is item number four. This gives you an idea of where we are with what goes into actually making something happen.  All of the approvals that have to happen so you guys as Council members are going to see these things over and over again.  You are going to go what is this here is another one and go didn’t we just do that.  No it’s another one.  They all have to be done for all of the various phases of where we are.  Plans and specs and awarding of bids and loan applications and accepting the grants, and zero loans they are all different entities and different places where other stuff comes from.  This gives you an idea of what we look at in keeping track of stuff.  With that being said we will jump into equalization rehab and it started last year and as we got into we realized that there wasn’t enough money.  The cost of cleaning the tanks has gone through the roof because of the confined space.  That drove the project to be delayed.  We have some grants, zero interst loans and we are going to ask for more money.  I am hoping that we could get…when it goes out to bid the plans are made.  We haven’t put it out to bid and when it goes out to bid they will be bringing that the costs are lowered.  The cleaning costs that some how for whoever gets these contracts could do it less than the estamtes that we have gotten from independent contractors.

 

Mr. Carr: This is the last item on the list that you are talking about the basin control structer location?

 

Mr. Gorka: It is the one above that. The original budget was around $850,000.00 to 2.2 million based on the cost that we got for cleaning the tanks that we have. 

 

Mr. Sayler: They are more annual repairs…than what you anticipated.

 

Mr. Gorka: That is what drove us to the basin repairs. As we were looking at the tanks then we started looking at the control basins for the equalization tanks.  Especially the sifin hinges have sivere corrosion and they are in really bad shape. 

 

Mr. Sayler: That is the last one.

 

Mr. Gorka: That kind of got blown out of the one above it and Jim applied for….seventy five thousand dollars and a four hundred dollar grant and fifty thousand dollar low interest loan on that project. It is one of those separate things that rolling onto…I think that the plans are going to be separate projects and bids separately for sometime this summer.  They are both basically taking each tank that had put in…and just rehabbing all of them.  All of the interior stuff is rotten and falling off.  The plumbing that was put in and they had a water spray down system that we abandoned along time ago.  It used some much water that it was ridiculous.  The mixers that are in there and stuff like that to maintane them…we could but all of the interior stuff is rotten and I recommend that none of that stuff goes back in there.  We are going to have a whole different system that is going to go in there this time.  It is just a bad environment and it is just like a big sewer tank sitting there coroding away.

 

Mr. Sayler: This rehab project and the Quentin Rd. basin are going to use different technology than what was available in 1980.

 

Mr. Gorka: We were state of the art back then and then a year later they came up cool. The rehab plans are out and we are appling for a loan.  I do not know what the loan process is for the equalizationualization rehabilitation.

 

Mr. Sayler: We are already on the OEPA funding list. So now it is just a formal application where you have to go in and take bids.  Then you have to submit those bid numbers to the EPA and they have their review process.  Then they award and they will enter into an agreement with the City of Willoughby for a low interest rate loan. What the EPA is doing right now it is 3%.  It will be a 20 year loan for this project at that interest rate.  Those interest rates change every quarter.  In April I think that it will change but I don’t know if it will go up or down or if it is staying the same.  I am pretty sure that this will be a second quarter interest rate.

 

Mr. Gorka: So sometime after July 1^st is when things will get going with that.  They will be put out to bid and then both of the City Council will see the bid award.  That and the rehab structures will be bid at the same time so you will probably see two things on the board sometime in the middle of summer.

 

Mr. Sayler: With the loan issue there will be a piece of legislation that the two cities will have to pass to agree on how the loan gets repaid between the two cities. Willoughby is getting the loan for it and Eastlake has to cover half of the cost of doing that.  There needs to be an amendment to the existing agreement. And another amendment that addresses how that repayment works.  A piece of legislation will be needed from both of the cities from the Quentin Rd. project saying the exact same reason.  Willoughby is getting the loan from the OEPA and it has to be repayment agreement between the two cities.  If there is no proof that Eastlake is…

 

Mr. Gorka: Repay it and they will pay it.

 

Mr. Sayler: Agree to pay.

 

Ms. DePledge: Are you talking about the 6043 basin project that is 2.2. Because then that goes down to the project cost where there is the $281.00 and the $50,000.00 loan.

 

Mr. Sayler: Yes.

 

Ms. DePledge: Being that there is still $800,000.00 or $900,000.00 still in loans? I know but if you are splitting it in half. So you are looking at $900,000.00 from Eastlake that is what I am asking.

 

Mr. Sayler: on a 20 year loan.

 

Ms. DePledge: On a 20 year loan. That makes it easier.

 

Mr. Sayler: It is easier to swallow.

 

Plant Stress Test

Mr. Gorka: One of the other projects that will happen is the stress test and we have talked about that quite a bit. We do not know what is going to come from that other than we want to try to utilize the space that we have at the plant.  We have two primay tanks that are empy for most of the time and they are running at two thirds capacity.  We also have aeration tanks that hold 900,000 gallons of capacity and they are doing nothing.  If you put that into prospective the Quentin Rd equalization tank is 800,000 gallons.  We are going to spend all of this money to build on when we already have one that is sitting at the back of the plant and we can’t get the water there.  That is part of what the stress test is.  It helps us to utilize what we have and we have 1.3 millon in capacity within the plant that is empty and we can’t get the water to it.  We can get the water to the primary ones and it isn’t being done efficiently we need to change the hydrolics or the grade line in the plant.  The engineer’s are doing that now.  I am really optimistic that we can make something happen.  We are already taking in about 35% of what it was before.  Even if we have to put in a pump station or something like that to move some of the water and that is the third one down.  It is at the engineering phase.  That comes out of that money won’t be in the budget until next year.  That is what ever we determine.    

 

Quentin Road Equalizationualization Tank

Mr. Gorka: The second one from the top is the Quentin Rd equalization tank.   We have been meeting diligently on it with the quality engineering for the last two months.  The original estimate was for 8.1 million.  Through the land acquisitions that are next door….however you want to look at it.  We went to the sight and we noticed that the house had burned down.  Evidently it happened about three years ago.  Nobody ever noticed that the house was gone so we said that why don’t we make our tank bigger and raise it up.  We threw some awesome engineering ideas in there so the bottom line is by taking the property we can save at minimum $60,000.00 and up to $200,000.00 by paying them what the property is worth.  We would expand out tank and we would also raise it up and at the same time we will use Waverly sewer for some of the capacity.  We would size up Waverly sewer and change the grade on it so that we won’t have to dig as deep.  The saving is anywhere from 2.4 million dollars.  The additional cost for Waverly sewer will bring that down but I think that…the most conservative estimate will save at least a million to a million and a half dollars.  That is where we are with the Quentin project.

 

Mr. Carr: The original budget was for $8.1 million…a million less?

 

Mr. Gorka: Yes I think so. I think that we are doing….    

 

Mr. Gwydir: A lot less.

 

Mr. Gorka: A lot less than that.

 

Mr. Gwydir: When we looked at the site unfortunately our site has a huge storm sewer outlet that goes to the lake. It was going to force us to put a tank on one side and to extend it all the way to the lake.  Or to bracket the sewer with two tanks and both of which were very expensive options.  You will have to hold the soil back and the tanks and the tanks will have to be deep because of the adjasent property.  We couldn’t get on it and that is when it hit all of us to look next door.  To look and see if we could aquire the property for that and as Mr. Gorka has noted would allow us to have a single tank. That would give us as engineer’s a favorable geometry for the tank.  It would enable it to potentially be a little bit shallower and less costly.  First we looked at acquiring the property and this has been happening within the past week.   Because of the permit schedules we have a very tight schedule.  We are trying to hussel. With moving the tank over to the other property or using the two properties will save us a significant amount of money.  If we paid $300,000.00 for it the conservative estimate is $64,000.00 net and a non-conservative is $171,000.00 net.  Then when we were meeting this past week Mr. Sayles was looking at the Waverly sewer that was going up and if we allow that to surcharge a little bit. When we do the relief sewer it will enable us to change the geometry of the tank in such that is where you save $2.4 million.  That will require some extra work on Eastlake’s behalf on the Waverly sewer to the tune of about one million dollars give or take.  Please understand that these are preliminary and that we were throwing these all together in the past two days.  At any rate it pulls the total cost from what we had as an estimate of eight million dollars and Mr. Gorka correct me if I am wrong.  We are looking at a cost of around $3.2 million give or take.  Between all of these changes it is a significant.

 

Mr. Sayler: There is going to be an extra cost to Waverly.

 

Mr. Gwydir: There will be an extra cost to Waverly and since it is something that Eastlake would wholey pay for because of this change that million dollars would end up being a 50/50 split between Eastlake and Willoughby. We wouldn’t have to bare all of the costs for that.

 

Mr. Sayler: You will turn that delta into a split tank.

 

Mr. Gwydir: Turn that difference into a split. Again we are trying to hone the figures but the magnitude of the figures is dropping down is very significant.  We will be coming back up Council along with going through Mr. Klammer and the Mayor with a request of one property purchase.  If we could come to an agreed upon price we will then say that we can get this property for what we think it is worth wild to buy.  Then we will proceed forward.  I expect that to be within the next couple of Council cycles on our side.  I am keeping appraised of all of the discussions.  Mr. Klammer has been called about every other day about the legalities of the approach.  All of this has unfolded within the past week.

 

Mr. Sayler: It dawned on me that looking at the existing Waverly sewer going into the Quentin pump station is very deep. So if you have a real deep sewer you could take advantage of that depth.  By being able to use that extra depth to kind of work like a gravity pumping station to get the water to the equalization basin.  Instead of having to build a big pumping station at Quentin to pump into this tank and that is where the savings is.  You won’t have to build that big pumping station if we could do this. I am absolutely sure that we can pull this off but that is the path we are taking. It’s to make sure that we don’t increase the over flows to the environment.

 

Mr. Hoefle: What were you saying about parts of the land?

 

Mr. Sayler: The auditor has the price of that land and as Mr. Gwydir said…

 

Mr. Gwydir: $267,000.00 is what you will see on the auditor’s site.

 

Mr. Sayler: We are going to have an appraisal done because that is the appropriate thing to do. The appraiser has talked to the son but…when we sit here and tell them.

 

Mr. Gorka: That will be something that you guys will be acting on here really shortly and it is the property acquisition.

 

Mr. Sayler: The Law Director’s will have a read on how that is going to happen. Eastlake will windup owning the land but it will be a joint facility sitting on this new piece of property.

 

Mr. Gwydir: It is just to try and meet the requirments of the permit in terms of the schedules that they want us to have this finished by. We are going to get a little bit of an extention from the EPA but I don’t think that it will be a real long one.

 

Mr. Gorka: April 15^th.

 

Mr. Gwydir: That is why we are going as fast as we…

 

Ms. DePledge: April 15^th is the deadline?

 

Mr. Gorka: Fourty five days.

 

Mr. Gwydir: There is a requirement for and it is called a PTI or a permit to install this improvement by the EPA that you have to get.   So to get that PTI you have to give them practically finished plans almost bidable sets of plans for them to review to give you this permission.  Alledgely the schedule says that we are supposed to have that on March 1^st.  Obviously we are trying to figure out if we can buy the land if it’s even worth to buy it and all.  It has precluded from any of the serious engineering because start designing a deep tank only to find out that we can move it over here.  Now that we have this news we are presuming that potentially we can get the property moving on the tank.  Then we can get our engineering rolling where we have a two month window now to get the plans together and get them in to the EPA.

 

Ms. DePledge: Just the plans?

 

Mr. Gwydir: Yes just the plans.

 

Ms. DePledge: Do you have to have the property purchased before you submit the plans?

 

Mr. Gwydir: Not necessarly but we would like it to be under an agreement.

 

Ms. DePledge: Is it actually an estate?

 

Mr. Gwydir: We are not sure. We are trying to find that out tright now.  It is a complicating factor.  Some of the costs are lucarative to do this.

 

Ms. DePledge: If there was a transfer on death or if something like that was there. It would make a big difference verses being tide up in probate.

 

Mr. Gwydir: We don’t know how it is held and that is one of the things that we have to find out.

 

Mr. Sayler: We will be able to do this with a purchase agreement. If you could accept that then we potentially will.

 

Mr. Geydir: There are certain things that are relative to the design that we will need one of those things. What we would like to do is get on the property for soil borings to find out the soil properties and right now we are not allowed to enter onto that property.  The owner has allowed us to enter on for the purpose to survey in which we did.  But they would allow us to enter on for soil borings.  We could bore around it and it probably won’t change we would like to drop a bore where the tank is going to be.

 

Mr. Gorka: So that is where Quentin Rd is and we have an extention for OEPA to get a PTI approval plans into them by April 15^th.  Mr. Gwydir has just said that we can do that.  That will meet the loan timeline that Mr. Sayler has.  The earliest that we can get the loan money is in October. The project won’t be let until at least then unless the EPA has an issue with the PTI that we give them. We have asked for an extention for the construction for a year after OEPA PTI and that means that it has to be their approved plans.  Whenever they get that back to us is when we can start our one year clock for construction.  That will push us closer to the Waverly sewer project anyway.  That is where we are at with that one.

 

Outfall Sewer

Mr. Gorka: The last one is that I have a set of prints here if anyone would like to look at them later and it the Outfall Sewer.  It is ready and it has won bids awarded and the proposing is near ordering the pipe.  They can’t work out on it until the 4^th of July.  I think that the only thing that we are missing out there is the borings because no one has been able to get out there.  The big thing is getting the pipe made and it takes forever to get made.  It takes like six months to make that.  But as it appears now we are on track with it.  We think that it will be good and the only thing is that as long as the lake isn’t rough.  They are usually luck to get two days a week…out on Lake Erie.  They have pushed out the contract to the middle or end of October to be done. Everybody know that September and October are pretty dicey out there too so.  Hopefully we get some good weather.

 

Mr. Sayler: They are under contract with Willoughby right now and have submitable shop drawings and all of that has started.

 

Mr. Gorka: As a note as to what we talked about before with funding this is a replacement project. There is money in the replacement fund and there is no new money coming from anybody.  The replacement fund has enough money in it to pay for this project.

 

Mr. Gwydir: Mr. Gorka we have…and this was passed on to the Finance Director that the City of Eastlake needs to make that contribution to that. It is $177,000.00 to the replacement fund if they haven’t done that yet.  That is our share.

 

Mr. Sayler: It is paid in advance into the replacement fund so that the project can move ahead.

 

4. Amendment to Joint Agreement

Mr. Gorka: That is going to be coming shortly.  The Law Department is working on it and the last that I heard is that they want to make amendments to the joint agreement.  There is an agreement that created all of this and that was in 1955 that lays out how all of this works, how it happened with all of the joint facilities.  It has been amended numerous times over the years.  We a proposing another amendment that is paying for all of these different projects and Willoughby’s Law Department wants each project to be it’s own amendment to the agreement and how it is going to be paid for jointly.  I don’t have anything to give to you at this point because they are still working on it.  That is going to be coming soon because we can’t borrow money and we can’t do any of these things.  The OWDA wants to be sure that they are going to get paid back so they aren’t going to loan anybody any money until there is a joint agreement saying how Willoughby and Eastlake are gong to pay into ths capital project. 

 

Mr. Carr: In the past we must have done some joint loans before so maybe the regulations have changed. Why isn’t it already amended in the agreement if we have done this before?

 

Mr. Sayler: It has always been done project by project.

 

Mr. Carr: ok.

 

Mr. Gorka: So you will be seeing that stuff shortly. So with that is there anything else?

 

 

 

 

Additional Comments

 

There were no further questions or comments.

 

The meeting was adjourned.

 

tms

                                                                        APPROVED:  _____________________

 

                                                                        DATE:  _________________________