WPCC COMMITTEE MEETING

 

MARCH 1, 2017

 

 

 

The joint WPCC meeting was held at the Eastlake City Hall.  Chair and City of Willoughby Mr. Harrold opened the meeting at approximately 6:01 p.m.

 

 

In attendance from the City of Eastlake: Chair Mr. Spotton, Members Mr. Meyers, Mr. Kasunick.  Present from Council was Kim Evers.  Present from the Administration was City Engineer Gwydir.  Also in attendance was Council Clerk Mrs. Simons. 

 

 

In attendance from the City of Willoughby: Willoughby WPCC Chair Bob Harrold, Bob Carr, Chris Wooding, and Willoughby City Engineer Jim Sayles. 

 

 

In attendance from the Water Pollution Control Center: WPCC Plant Superintendent Jack Gorka, Assistant Superintendent John Hall, and WPCC Industrial Associate Diana Passwaiter.

 

 

1. ANNUAL REPORT: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 

Mr. Gorka: I will start off with saying that the executive summary is one of my staff’s finest pieces of work this for this year.  We put a lot into it and there was a lot going on so if you ever get a chance to actually read it I think that it is well put together and it won’t put you to sleep.  It brings you up to date on lots of things that are going on.  I am going to try and go through them and we try to make this a quick as we can.  Today we have a lot of project updates and stuff like that.  If there is anything that you guys in reading that you saw that you want further explained or anything that I may say…because I am going to try and zip through it without all of the details in the report.  I want to say that we spent about two or three weeks putting this together and I think that it is a good time capsule for future generations.  Like what we have been doing and bringing any new members or anybody else up to speed on how we got here.  I know that it looks like there is a lot of redundancy or old stuff in there, but that’s the reason why we do it.  Because you never know when people change and they have no clue what we are talking about.  With that being said I am just going to go to the executive summary and try to zip through here.

 

 

1. WE-WPCC transfer currently unused WPCC property back to Eastlake

   Mr. Gorka: Item number one is…the Mayor came to us last year and said that some people had approached him with trying to transfer some of our property and we got together.  Long story short what is in front of you has been delineated and is what Willoughby Council I gave a nod to the Mayor that it is okay to make that transfer.  Obviously the agreements aren’t drawn up or anything like that and there is some detail work to be done for the future in all that.  But that would be the property that we would transfer over to Eastlake again who would in theory give it to the Port Authority.  Who would then be allowed to actually borrow money and do some good things with that piece of property there?  I have always said that is like the only public access on the river down here.  It is the only place where the public can actually get to it.  Right now it’s not being utilized at all.  The only thing to keep in mind is that you are not next to a perfume factory and everybody keeps that in mind.  So that twenty years from now when someone starts getting mad at somebody…it is what it is where it’s at.  There is a better copy of that floating around somewhere and this one was emailed two times.  I know that I have an original from these guys from about three years ago who put together the plan. 

   Mr. Carr: That’s a lot of property that we had over there.  More than I realized.

   Mr. Gorka: What was it in the beginning…forty-six acres or something before we started peeling it off to CEI.

   Mr. Carr: I’m shocked to see that this piece on the other side of the river is part of the plant.

   Mr. Gorka: We have always talked about a bridge over there and putting my high tower over there so that I could survey the whole…that actually goes to…there are pieces of property that take us right into number two. 

2. West Channel Yacht Club Lease

   Mr. Gorka: We renewed the ten year lease for the West Channel Yacht Club.  The map that you are looking at to the upper right corner and all the way over…that little section of the property there we leased it to West Channel Yacht Club and they use it for really restricted uses.  It is basically for parking boats and mowing the grass.  They can’t do anything unless they come to us to put in docks or anything like that.  There is another piece of the property that we also have and we renewed that lease.  Item number three the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit.

3. National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit

   Mr. Gorka: I want to say that this year and to thank Mr. Hall and company for all of his support staff…actually we had no violations…none of the significant ones that the EPA or anybody looks at.  I cannot recall ever in my thirty-seven years ever having a totally violation free year at the plant; where we didn’t have one.  They monitor all sorts of things so there are ten thousand things that we could get hit for in a year and we didn’t have any other than a few minor ones.  I am going to try and explain this as best as I can.  The low level mercury and what they sample this for…and this is our EPA.  It is one part per million is what we used to be sampled for and it is the concentrations in our water.  One part per million is one second in twelve days.  We are down to micrograms; which are one second in thirty years.  So if you can put that in your mind.  We are being monitored for mercury in parts per trillion; which is one second in thirty-one thousand seven hundred and nine years.  Putting it into prospective that the violations that we are talking about that we had in mercury; were tenths and hundredths of a part per trillion.  But yet they look just as big and bad and they are a violation.  You get written up and everybody moves all of the paper work around and it ends up in your file.  It goes on my permanent record that I have been out spoken for two or three years now about the ridiculousness of this.  Even the calibrations of the machines that they use and the acceptance level limits windows for quality assurance.  It is ridicules. 

   Mr. Sayles: Do you think that might get a little easier now under our new current administration?

   Mr. Gorka: I don’t know and I’m just putting it out there.  At any rate Mr. Hall should be proud of that fact.  The concentration on Lake Erie is 3-4 parts per trillion.  We are allowed to drink twelve.  I could get on a soap box on this for a half hour.

4. Average daily flow

   Mr. Gorka: The average daily flow last year was 5.795, which is the lowest since 1977.  It raises every bodies eyebrows and that is quit a low flow.  Last year we had almost an average rain fall, but it always fell in one or two days.  It fell…dry for four weeks.  It is just an interesting thing.

5. Follow up with United Stated Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)

   Mr. Gorka: I think that they dropped in on us in March.  There was lots of correspondence that was delayed for about a year or year in a half of going back and forth.  Responses and that entire sort of thing are all in there and all of the explanations.  The USEPA always finds something and there is always something to respond to.  In their comments, questions, recommendations, and all of that they are lengthy pieces of work that go back to them in small books like this goes back and forth.  This year I got a kick out of the one that showed up in March.  They named it for what it was a re-cognizance inspection.  We are doing recon for…well everything that they are looking for is Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSO) and bypassing.  Why are you bypassing?  Everything has to do with that.  Everything has to do with capacity being utilized or not being utilized.  And why is any overflow or any of those sorts of thing ever happen?  That is there motive for everything is to eliminate overflows and sanitary sewer overflows within a collection system. 

   Mr. Sayles: This includes black basements.

   Mr. Gorka: In here to and buried in there now is that they have gone into water and basements and it is called a sanitary sewer overflow, which they made a big deal about and it is in the SSDCP.  They wrote us up a couple of time on that.  So we have to report all water and basement incidences now that were caused by any problems in the sewer system.  By our problems due to back up or…

   Mr. Carr: Only sanitary in the basement or are you talking storm?

   Mr. Gorka: Just sanitary.  But if we only have capacity in the line and a heavy rain event and the lines are full it backs up in the basement to them it is an SSO event.  It is reportable to them through the SSDCP annually and within the collection systems.  Just keep that in mind that always seems to be their focus, because that is why they exist.  It is to make sure that there is capacity maintenance is done and the collection systems are clean to prevent SSO’s, and to eliminate the bypass.  If your system is cleaner and your equalization tanks don’t have debris in them and you have more capacity so you have less overflow and bypassing.  All of those things are their whole objective in everything that they do.  Which is why you have an SSES, SSDCP, but you guys are satellite to the WPCC.  I don’t own you so that is what the SSDCP is for.  We oversee you to make sure that you guys do the things that they want done.  That is why the entire SSES was put together.  It is a plan to stop all of the overflows in your systems.  Even though we are all intertwined…stop the bypasses at my place, which takes us to item number six.

6. Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Program

   Mr. Gorka: I am going to talk about later on in our agenda which is item number three so I will just zip over that.  You already have the introduction for that.

7. Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA)

   Mr. Gorka: We had a new EMPDS permit.  I think that everybody here is aware of that.  In here is just a highlight of what they required us to do.  I can hit on them again.  We were supposed to do a stress test which we did.  We submitted it on September 1 and we haven’t heard back from them.  Some recommendations from the Engineers that we will talk about later that came out of that.  The plans for the Quentin Road had to be submitted and they got time extensions for that.  We ended up getting a time extension for the construction period as well.  Permit modification was actually effective today, which give us a year from today to finish Quentin Road.  Originally it was supposed to be done by today.  The EPA usually is lenient as long as you are showing good faith in moving forward on all of the projects that they give you.  They understand that things happen and you can’t get stuff done in time.  Another item was Waverly Road, which we will talk about that later on today.  The last item is updating the SSES.  After we get the improvements done they want us to evaluate how well they work.  Are the SSO’s diminished or gone? Are they meeting the one hour ten year criteria or the two hour ten year criteria?  Are we bypassing less at the plant?  Then we have to submit that again and I’m sure the Engineer’s will like that.  More studies will have to be done by March of 2021. 

8. Plant Stress Test

   Mr. Gorka: I hit on some of the things…everything kind of intertwined with all of the things in the summary and what we do.  The stress test consisted of…one piece of it was expanding our inflow gate. Opening it up and letting more water in.  That is part of what we did and what we are recommending what we do and things that you will see later on in construction.  But in so doing I think that we treated another 10 Million gallons that normally would have been bypassed in this experiment that we are currently doing right now.  Just thirty-four percent (34%) of what would have gone out.  I think that in itself is a good thing. 

9. Current NPDES permit

   Mr. Gorka: The current NPDES permit has toxicity sampling and last year we were 50 for 50 for…dime.  We know what it is and it is ammonia and we have a plan this year to jump start the plant into nitorphying.  I do not want to go into it, but if we can get the nitrogen which is an ammonia out of the plant early.  We start to nitrophying plant…even though we are not designed to do…the Engineer’s get the credit for this.  Somehow we nitrophy even though we’re not designed for it, which lowers our ammonia and that makes us non-toxic.  This year we have a plan to try and jump starts it by buying some nitrobacteria bugs.  Mr. Hall is going to put them in in May and get them going by June for our testing and hopefully we can knock our ammonia down.  As long as we stable the toxicity threshold I think that they will leave us alone; which is what we want.  If they make us a nitrophying plant…how many millions?  Lots of money.

   Mr. Sayles: Lots of money to convert the plant.

   Mr. Gorka: That is not what we do.  We want to stay out of that.

10. Satellite Sewer Discharge Control Program (SSDCP)

    Mr. Gorka: We sort of hit that already and I passed out the SSDCP.  We always talk about it and this year I was going that we always talk about it and I think that most people don’t even know what it is.  You don’t have to look at it now we can look at it later, but in the future it will be in this form in our report.  It is all a part of all this…the SSES, SSDCP, SEMON Programs.  Everything that we are going to do is move it towards is this what it is designed for; which is eliminating sanitary overflows and limiting the bypassing plant.  This is a definition of SSDCP is and what its intent is, and for us to be done with it someday.  I tried to get rid of it once but they said “no”.

11. OEPA pretreatment compliance inspection

    Mr. Gorka:  We had a compliance inspection for the first time in about three or four years.  They left us alone forever and as usual they always find something and Ms. Passwaiter handled it with her usual ruthless thoroughness.  She does an awesome job.  I just wanted to mention that we had someone came in one time and looked at it.  Permit fees and extra strength waste there is revenue generated from the pretreatment division.  Sampling goes good…everybody knows what to do.  The program is a well oiled machine. 

12. Routine and preventive maintenance activities

    Mr. Gorka:  Maintenance was routine this year and there are not big projects by our guys.  The aging work force…anything big to do or they get it done so quickly anymore that I don’t consider it big.  If we wanted to do something when we were younger it would take two weeks and it all gets done in three days now.

13. Number of employees at year end

    Mr. Gorka:  We have seventeen full-time employees and two part-time.  Since the end of 2010 we have reduced the staff by five full-time people and we have absorbed it into everyone else who is there.  All of it still gets done.  We added two part-timers and the five being subtracted out there.  This year we are going to lose another one.  In 2017 we have a guy who is retiring and we are not going to replace him.  Operations Division is all automated and shrinking.  The only down side to it is a little bit more overtime; but we have a schedule that requires five people to run 24/7 in the Operations Division.  They are all well paid employees and important people get paid even more.  As they become the only ones they become more valuable and they realize that and they do a really good job.  Mr. Hall has always said that the one thing that he noticed when he came here from Euclid is that our guys care.  They are all consciences and they care about what they do. 

14. Plant safety during 2016

    Mr. Gorka:  There were only three minor incidences.  If it didn’t snow here we probably wouldn’t have anything happen.

15. Expenditure request for 2017

    Mr. Gorka:  The budget requests $3.2 Million and it is about 1% higher than last year’s budget request.  Kind of keep in mind…never mind.  The actually expenses were about 5% below the year before and only about $24,000 over 2014.  This year’s budget doesn’t have that guy’s retirement in, but I don’t think that he has a whole lot termination fees associated with him.

16. 2017 third and final year for increases to the replacement fund

    Mr. Gorka:  This is the last year for the increase of the replacement fund.  Everybody will be happy.  The Finance Directors will be happy.  The last increase is $50,000.00 for each city.  We increased it for three years so we got it back up.  With that being said the replacement fund balance is about two and a quarter, so we need to put some money in it.

17. 2016 operation and maintenance flow split

    Mr. Gorka:  The flow meters are working well and once again we are a well oiled machine.  I get an opportunity every quarter to re-calibrate the meters and I get to meet with the engineer’s to go over everything that is going on in the plant.  They are well aware of what is going on all the time.

18. Six ongoing replacement projects in 2016

    Mr. Gorka: With the six projects that we have I will talk about four of them later on and two of them we have finished.

 

1. WE-WPCC submerged outfall diffuser

   Mr. Gorka:  They replaced all of the t heads out in the lake.  They got bent over and all of that.  The final cost was $890,381.00.  It was under budget.  I will say that the acutely work took two weeks to put the barge out there.  I went on vacation and came back and went out there and the barge was gone.  It was amazing.  I recommend that you look in the report it is all the way in the back under Outfall Sewer and read the two pages of all the work that it took to get to doing two weeks’ worth of work.  Between all of the permits, the Army Corp, and the layers of bureaucracy to get that thing moved.  To go out in the water to dig up a piece of pipe and put another one in was amazing.  Every time you thought that you were almost there and the things that you needed to do.  It took me a half a day one day just to figure out who are we waiting on to get something done.  Divisions inside the Army Corp don’t talk to each other to get approvals.  They wait till the last day that it is due to you before they give it to you.  If they ask you for something then the clock re-sets.  All the way to another six months; we are going to wait because you asked for something.  It is ridicules.

   Mr. Sayles: I have to correct you on one thing.  It’s not quite finished we are looking for volunteers.  The contractor was supposed to remove the old pipe and take it with him. 

   Mr. Gorka: We don’t know yet.

   Mr. Sayles: And we don’t know if they did that.  So if someone has scuba gear.  They actually requested if they could leave the old pipe down there.  For like a reef or something like that.  But the Corp of Engineers prohibited that.  I should say prohibited…when we submitted to them we said that we were going to have it disposed of and is what was approved.  To do a change and go back to court and say “how about if we leave the pipes down there” would have restarted.

   Mr. Gorka: Another year of our life would be down the tube….all of engineering fees that are associated.  Not worth it.  It looks like it has to be hauled to some landfill.

   Mr. Sayles: I have to say that they did the job without interrupting the plant flow.

   Mr. Gorka: They were in and out and they know what they are doing.

2. Mix/hold grinder

   Mr. Gorka: The other item was a mix/hold grinder and we were going to replace the entire thing so it was easier to get to and rebuild all the time, because the other one was wearing out.  Since we put the new screen in on December of 2011 we have had far less rags and things getting into the plant that used to chew up all of these grinders.  Our supervisors said that I will rebuild the stack for about $10,000.00 out of O&M and we will be good.  We’ve been and so we didn’t use that we did it out of O&M instead of out of the replacement.

3. Equalization basin rehabilitation project

4. Equalization Basin Control Structure Rehabilitation Project

5. Quentin Road Equalization Basin Project

6. Capacity Enhancement Project

 

1. Request for new replacement project for the WE-WPCC and Joint System Facilities for 2017

   Mr. Gorka: This is a new water line for the plant.  That is next on the agenda.

2. Funded improvements through the life of the grants

   Mr. Gorka: It used to be that this expired so we would just say that we should, but now we are getting grants again.  We are going to have grants on some of these projects and all of that.

   Mr. Sayles: Low interest loans.

   Mr. Gorka: I think that we are getting a grant from the rehab the tank rehab structure.

   Mr. Sayles:  That doesn’t…we will have Ohio Public Works.

   There were no further questions or comments.

   2.  Plant Water Line Replacement

   Mr. Gorka: It is in here so the City Engineer’s can jump in where ever they want.  I have it as the simplest terms.  The waterline was put in in 1959 and Ms. Passwaiter got the courthouse and found the easement.  The reason that nobody could find it was that back in the 1950’s they used to write the easements and stack them all up in one single document.  It was lower down and buried in another one that starts off for storm sewers so everybody would just move on.  We found the waterline easement and the problem is that the water line goes onto CEI’s property and it goes between the towers and cuts over underneath the creek, underneath the trailer park.  The trailer park is tapped into the line and it comes to us.  It was put in by our recollection it looks like 1959 is when the easement got recorded.  The plant didn’t start up until August of 1961 and somewhere in that window someone put this thing in.  It broke once deep enough by the creek on the trailer park property and the water company wouldn’t fix it, because they said that it was ours.  They said that it is ours all the way to Lakeshore Blvd. even though the trailer park is tied into it.  I think that we had this discussion five years ago.  Eventually after a year and a half of it leaking they were going to threaten to shut our water off and so we had to fix it.  The deal was made and we got it fixed and all of the and since then it’s been on….and we should get rid of this and make this right.  Just put it on our property or a good easement and replace it anyways, because it is almost sixty years old (60).  If it leaks again I don’t want to be digging under the power lines between the towers or anything like that.  It goes under the creek and who knows if it is exposed under there…I have no idea.  That and the trailer park is tapped into it all over and it runs under trailers.  If it starts leaking under there…the bottom line is for budget estimate is $185,000.00. The engineer’s have already done some preliminary talking to the Water Company and they said that they could come off of Erie Road and bring it down our driveway right into the plant.  That is my replacement request for this year.

   Mr. Carr:  So we run a new water line to the plant and abandon the old one so where does that leave the trailer park?

   Mr. Sayles: Abandon it after the trailer park.

   Mr. Carr: Are we stuck with any responsibility in that?

   Mr. Sayles: Not that I should practice law, but we would have to just work something out with them.  They have water inside their development that they can tap into.  It would just cost them some money to run their service lines from the handful of units over to another one that they have.

   Mr. Carr: So it’s not like it is servicing the whole trailer park?

   Mr. Gorka: Just a piece of it.

   Mr. Sayles: It’s just the back corner.  The northwest corner.

         

 

Mr. Gorka: So they could fix the problem or…

 

 

Mr. Sayles: The County could take over the cost…we are fine for doing this and no one is going to shut the water off and put people out of water.

 

 

Mr. Gorka: So that is what I would like to do.

 

 

There were no further questions or comments.

 

 

3.  Maintenance Program

 

Mr. Gorka: We talked about before SSDCP and everything has to do with overflows, the sanitary overflows passing maintenance.  Out of everything the U.S. and OEPA and all of the inspections and all of that stuff…probably a third of the report has to do with documentation of all the maintenance that you on your collection systems and all of the repairs that you do and everything that is associated with that.  They want to see work orders, how a resident calls when it gets fixed, and they follow through the whole chain.  The first few inspections where three days long and this one was only two days long.  We have an archaic system and let me cut to that…this is pretty much what we use and a piece of paper.  People write it down and it stacks up somewhere and somebody somewhere eventually puts it in the computer and not in a data base in a useable form.  They just put it somewhere and at the end of the year when I want a report on what did you guys do? Some guy gets this and goes to a computer or looks through a stack of papers and starts writing it out and I get that.  It’s not what the EPA really wants to see and it really isn’t easy for us.  It is time to….

 

 

Mr. Sayles: Get a good process going.

 

 

Mr. Gorka: Get something better than that, because there are so many things anymore with all of our technology that we can do.  With that being said you never know what you can do until you get something and how much better it makes your life.  For two years now we have been looking at systems.  What can we do and we started small and we worked our way into the GIS base.  Both cities have CT is hosting or you guys have the data base for the GIS maps.  We found a company and I guess a lot of them do it now, we found one that we liked the best, the most user friendly, and scale able. Semen Programs will incorporate CT stuff that we are merging into there.  They are cloud based, unlimited users, the guys will have tablets in the field, have a gps to know where they are.  They can come up to a manhole, do the measurements and put all of the data in and it is in the system.  I can look at it from the plant. 

 

 

Mr. Sayles: You can see it, the Service Director for Eastlake can see it and Willoughby can see it.

 

 

Mr. Gorka: I want a report at the end of the year as to what happened this year?  Punch it out and it starts spitting out.  I think that it will help everybody and it will make everybody more efficient.  They would have the ability to go out there and document what they do without someone having to come back.  What did we do today?  Where did we go for a manhole where?  Get the map out and where were we at…as it is now our guys have a stack of maps in there and go through them to figure out where they were and all of that.  We did 500 ft of sewer and all that stuff.  You can just…

 

 

Mr. Sayles: So now when they are there they hold the gps and you know exactly where they were.

 

 

Mr. Gorka: It brings up where you’re at and all of that.  The nice thing about this program the dude solutions is something of a service 311…is it scale able in the fact that we are going to get the water and sewer package.  I don’t believe that it has stormwater in it, but they can hang stormwater on it.  All you have to do is take your gps maps of storm water merge then into it and now we have a bigger thing.  You can put all of your traffic lights on it, all of your traffic signs, all the fire hydrates, and you can do anything.  They even said that your Building Department can use it for everything that they want.  So you can pull up to an address and it tells you everything about that house. 

 

 

Mr. Sayles: The Engineer’s can use it too.  That tracking of where you have problems…if the maintenance crews are going out time and time and time again in the same areas and kind of doing the same thing; this highlights that.  You can ask for that information and see…exactly as opposed to whether or not the sewer guys remember that.  The real bad one obviously they remember, but this can help start filling in lots of data.  It tells you something about how your sewer system is working and a little hint on why you’re getting some basement flooding all of a sudden in a neighborhood.  You can take a look at what kind of maintenance has been going on.  You can develop your Capital Improvements Program potentially off of this kind of system.

 

 

Mr. Woodin: When you do that go ahead and throw the storm sewer in there as well.  I know that you said it was just sanitary.

 

 

Mr. Gorka: In negotiating with the guys back in December he was hot to trot but I had to slow him down.  They gave us and since I’m the user…if I would be the user on the city all the cities could be encompassed under my one fee and one license and all of that.  If you approached him on your own it would be one for you and one for you and it would be twice as much.  I got it for one set up fee, which the set up fee would be $15,760.00 and that is moving all of the GIs maps and all of that.  Annually it would be eleven nine for their support.  Unlimited users and the only other thing we had to buy were some tablets to us out in the field and those are cheap.  The good news about this that it isn’t going to come out of anybodies anything it is going to come out of the WPCC, so it’s a shared cost.  No new costs and no new funds.  I will just bake it into my O & M cost my capital cost.  We will start it rolling actually it will just be a line item.  I will just close with saying that two years ago we were using flip phones and that was state of the art for us.  I got tired of it and I railed on Angelo and the Finance Director was there in the office or the speaker was there when I was doing it and we got smart phones within two weeks.  The things that we do with that now…had we known the productivity out of us…I can’t speak for the rest of the city and whoever else got them.  Out of us it is in creditable.  We have problems him and Paul take pictures and I see them in seconds.  They send me pictures of this is whets wrong and what is going on and I hardly leave my office anymore.  Because I don’t have to see anything because it just shows up as to what is going on and we react from there.  Yesterday and today Jim and I had something with Erie Road.  You didn’t have to move anywhere and I didn’t have to move anywhere.  Pictures were taken of the problems and sent to all of the suppliers, the contractors, and the manufacturers as to this is what’s going on.  This is what we need to do.  Guys out in California and we solved this problem without anybody even moving, or even looking at it other than the one person who did.  To me it’s just like that’s what these new things can do.  Sometimes you don’t know what it’s going to do for you until you start using it.  I’m willing to believe that the Sewer Department will find way more uses then we can think of.

 

 

Mr. Gwydir: The program is very robust.  We are using it for a small portion, but there are layers and layers and layers to become proficient at it.  It stops what we had a couple of years ago…with all of this paper work over at the Service Department trying to find basement flooding and to count them up.  It took days and days and days to find that.  It was incomplete at the end of the run.

 

 

Mr. Sayles: It probably wasn’t right when you were done.

 

 

Mr. Gwydir: It’s not completed and it depends on who took what notes.  Where, when and how it wasn’t integrated in any way with anything Willoughby was doing and we share the same system.

 

 

Mr. Gorka: I think that with the WPCC oversight that we can…I think that it will be a good thing.  It will be a good development and it will satisfy USEPA, OEPA, SSDCP requirements, and it will make every bodies life easier, quicker, faster, and better.

 

 

Mr. Sayles: You will be able to do your job better.

 

 

Mr. Gorka: Why clean a sewer that doesn’t need it?  Why clean a sewer that doesn’t show that there is any build up in it?  So why go back there?  Because you have the data right there when you roll up verses you’re never going to find it in these files.

 

 

Mr. Woodin: It will show a history of maintenance.  I think that it is phenomenal and it’s a great idea.

 

 

Mr. Gorka: You can do work orders.  A call comes into Willoughby and Michelle can just punch it into the system and send it.  Anybody out there can see that somebody just said “there is something going on in my basement” and there is someone already on the north end they are just going to respond.  As it is now everybody has to come back into the garage to get their paper or get a phone.

 

 

Mr. Woodin: There is a history of that now.  It is not going to get lost in the paper trail.

 

 

Mr. Gwydir: It’s all recorded right there.

 

 

Mr. Sayles: The crew goes out to and televises sewers.  You do a recording and you put that into the data base.  So the next time that you’re out there on that sewer that guy in the field can actually pull up that video…

 

 

Mr. Woodin:  See what differences like any shifting…that is great.

 

 

Mr. Sayles: When it was televised two years ago.  There are all kinds of advantages that should just build and build over…

 

 

Mr. Woodin: How is the training going to go as far as that?  Will they bring people out to train on any of the equipment?  Or is it a gps with a laptop and you punch in the information?

 

 

Mr. Gorka: There was some support to it and I don’t know how they were going to do it…a couple of days.  I just wanted to get a concept of….

 

Mr. Woodin: It is a really great concept.

 

 

Mr. Gorka: The support that I got from them was that they seemed to be willing to…it wasn’t a lot of extra expense.  They are more interested in…they are cloud based so they have some server farms somewhere.

 

 

Mr. Sayles: We looked at two or three systems that have come in and they did presentations. 

 

 

Mr. Gorka: Some of them are not user friendly at all.  This one they actually cleaned up and this was their second time coming back to us and they made it better then when we saw them before.

 

 

Mr. Sayles: It doesn’t sound too sophisticated to do the solutions.

 

 

Mr. Harrold: But there has to be some training done…they aren’t just going to give it to you and walk away.

 

 

Mr. Sayles: It is ongoing support.

 

 

Mr. Gorka: They are hosting it.  They are in forty percent (40%) of the Ohio Counties.  In five or six of the neighboring counties they have a piece of their software in.  It may not be the whole thing…it may just be the sewer water or whatever.  They have forty percent (40%) of Ohio…they have 9,000 customers nationwide.  They are becoming a big deal.  Actually within a year or two they got bigger from when we first saw them.

 

 

Mr. Harrold: Sounds like a good program and we should move forward on that.

 

 

4.  Project Updates

 

1. Quentin Road Equalization Tank

   Mr. Gorka: I will turn that over to Mr. Sayles.

   Mr. Sayles: The construction has started and stopped.  Primarily for two reasons…they have to put in sheet pile shoring system to keep digging deeper then they have already dug.  We just approved those drawing two weeks ago. I am assuming that they are getting their materials in line and so on to do that.  Plus they had to approved dump sites…DeMilta’s property on Erie Rd. and the Lake County Landfill in Painesville Township.  When the weather is bad DeMilta shuts down and the Lake County Landfill shuts down, because they make a mess trying to drive trucks in and out.  They were stuck there and couldn’t haul.  In fact I think that Lake County Utilities said don’t come back.  They are looking for another dump site…they are looking at a site in Willoughby, but they picked a site where the current property owner has a whole bunch of zoning violations and is refusing to clean up the zoning violations.  The City of Willoughby is not going to allow any dumping to go there.  They are stuck looking for places to get rid of their dirt, but the next step will be to start putting in their shoring to get further on the excavation.  But they have to find another dump site. 

   Mr. Woodin: Is there any…there isn’t much dirt there…the cities can use it?  I mean we have a spot in our yard to dump some of that. 

   Mr. Gorka: There is a lot of dirt.

   Mr. Woodin: I drive by their everyday and to me it didn’t look like a lot at all.

   Mr. Sayles: There is 12,000 cubic yards of dirt coming out of there.

   Mr. Woodin: I think there were trucks hauling out of there today.

   Mr. Sayles: There are 1,200 trucks.

   Mr. Woodin: The little plant out there in the front? 

   Mr. Sayles: They are back working…they are digging…

   Mr. Woodin: I’m not talking about what they have left to dig out I thought that they had to move the dirt that they have out there before they could start the pylons and get that dirt out of there.

   Mr. Sayles: I think that is their own problem.  I don’t know if they are hauling out of that road or where they are taking it.

   Mr. Gwydir: They were doing some hauling.

   Mr. Woodin: They were dirtying up the road.

   Mr. Sayles: That is getting a very slow start and the completion date is about a year from now.  It is going to take a while to get all of that excavated out of there.  The concrete will not start going in there for months yet.  We are going through all of the approvals of their product of the hatches and the concrete mixes and all that kind of stuff right now.  It is kind of a slow start but so far so good so far as they don’t hit an Indian burial ground or something.

2. Waverly Relief Sewer

   Mr. Gwydir: The Quentin Road Equalization Basin is a joint system improvement that was required by the EPA.  The City of Eastlake and the City of Willoughby are splitting the cost for that 50% as a system improvement.  Also as part of the permit cycle and this connects to the Equalization basin the EPA asked us to put a relief sewer in along Waverly Road.  To get rid of any possibility of basement flooding and a design storm in that area, even though there have been relatively few recorded.  There is that possibility so they demanded that the Waverly 1 Relief Sewer to be done.  We have arrived at a point in time now where we are probably a month away from having to get underway with the design.  In anticipation of that and on behalf of the city and with permission of the Mayor we applied to the WPLCF back in 2015, and we renewed our application in 2016, and we will do it again this year in August for a low interest loan for that work.  Back in 2011 it was estimated that the cost for that work would be in the neighborhood of $2,445,000.00 and we are not sure where that has to go in, in terms of the right away. Whether we are going to be in the right a way, off the right a way, require easements and things so with all of that being said the costs are going to fall somewhere between $2,400,000.00 and approximately $3,667,000.00 on the high side. In about a month or so we should start moving forward with the design.  We have to have things ready to submit for permit to install towards the end of this year.  Originally we were slated to get the loan approved I believe in April 2018.  However, we may push that schedule out a little bit.  As I am going to apply for OPWC funding to see if I can get some grant money to the city to cover some of the costs associated with the sewer in addition to the loan that we are getting.  That would push the work out till around July 2018, because that is when the OPWC money will come in.  That would still allow us to finish the work on time.

   Mr. Woodin: That will help with East 330^th Street and all of those roads there for the potential flooding in their basements?

   Mr. Gwydir: It is potential flooding, because the SSES that was done in 2011 showed that it was possible under certain conditions for basements to flood.  As Mr. Gorka noted the two things that the EPA is on us about is any potential basement flooding, which is considered a sanitary sewer overflow.  Actually sanitary sewer overflows…after we get through the next couple of projects would that be the time Mr. Gorka to talk about going forward out into 2020 or is now the time?

   Mr. Gorka: Other than to say that Waverly 1 is what this really is and there is Waverly 2.

   Mr. Gwydir: Yes there is another relief sewer that extends further and it crosses Vine Street into Waverly, which is Waverly 2.  They haven’t asked us to do that and again there are a number of things that Mr. Gorka spoke about, where we re-evaluate how these improvements are affecting the system.  Those re-evaluations that are fed back to the EPA who decides what else we need to do along those lines.  One of the problems that we have is at East Island Drive we have a sanitary sewer overflow.  It has been on the EPA’s radar and they haven’t said anything about it, but I am anticipating that in the next permit cycle.  Mr. Gorka this permit cycle ends in December 2019?

   Mr. Gorka: December 31^st.

   Mr. Gwydir: I am anticipating in the next permit cycle we are going to hear from the EPA that says “you have to do a new equalization basin”, which we call east Lakeshore.  I think that the thing is upside down behind you Mr. Sayles.  It is showing up there somewhere in the neighborhood of Hillcrest.

   Mr. Sayles: Right now it is showing in front of the schools…the basin is somewhere over there.

   Mr. Gwydir: Somewhere over by Forest Drive…the cost of that basin is going to be in the neighborhood of $6 Million to $8 Million.  There is another issue in that general area.  We are probably going to have to acquire land unless we put it in front of the school, which maybe some what problematic.  That is going to factor in and they haven’t said anything, but they are talking about enough so I just wanted to put it out there.  That is going to be coming.

   Mr. Sayles: That will be a joint project similar to Quentin Road.

   Mr. Gwydir: That will be a joint project.  So far the EPA has been going a little bit slower then I think the schedule that we had.  Originally we were supposed to do about $51 Million in repairs to this system in three years.  We are supposed to have that done now and we extended it out to 2040.  The way that it is unfolding it seems like we are getting a project to every permit cycle.  It may extend out a bit longer, but I just want you to be ready for that.  On our side of it…at least on Eastlake’s side I talked to Ms. Schindel to make sure that she looks at the current sewer rates for the things that we thing are coming up.  To make sure that they are robust enough to handle the loans that will eventually be taken to care of these things. 

   Mr. Gorka: That is Waverly?

   Mr. Gwydir: Yes.

3. Capacity Enhancement Project

   Mr. Sayles: Mr. Gorka has touched on this a little bit and this tie into with what Mr. Gwydir has just said.  The EPA…what we said that we can’t to that $50 Million in just a few years it will take us until 2040 and they said that isn’t good enough.  Then they came back and said well do Quentin Road and Waverly on this schedule and do the stress test and see if you can get more flow through the plant.  That is done and we can get more flow from 20mgd to 24 mgd…all properly treated.  Taking a quick look at that if you see on this plan we had a WPCC Equalization Basin of 800,000 gallons…it is the same size as Quentin Road.  That can be reduced down to 100,000 gallons, because the treatment plant can actually handle more flow.  So that has reduced that requirement down to roughly 100,000 gallons.  As a part of that analysis that is figured out we can actually take Mr. Gorka’s four primary settling tanks and run the flow through two of them for the flow that is coming in.  Use the other two as equalization.  So he has room to actually do the equalization inside the plant.  Probably a million dollars worth of modifications in piping, gates and so on to accomplish that.  Obviously it is way cheaper then Quentin Road and it is a $3.7 Million construction project.  Instead of doing that out in the front yard at the WPCC and maybe interfering with this…doing these improvements inside the plant will solve that problem.  It will eliminate that WPCC Equalization Basin.  Just move it inside the plant basically.  Then all of these projects that Mr. Gwydir was saying we would re-evaluate in 2021.

   Mr. Gorka: In March of 2021.

   Mr. Sayles: The re-evaluate how all of this is performing?  Does that change anything about the other recommended system improvements from that study?  Hopefully that is all good news and maybe we will be able to eliminate some of those future projects.  It is probably wishful thinking.

   Mr. Woodin: Maybe the EPA will lower some of their standards too.  I know like what Mr. Gorka was saying that some of the things just do not make sense.  We might be okay.

   Mr. Sayles: Bypassing raw sewage or putting raw sewage in people’s basements and out into Lake Erie…I doubt that is going to….The mercury limit is crazy low.  Hopefully we will see.  That capacity enhancement project that we have we submitted a nomination for the EPA to get the same low interest loans that we have been getting for the other projects.  I think that we will be showcasing that loan in 2019.  So that is coming.

   Mr. Gorka: In 2018 with the construction into early 2019 in July.

   Mr. Sayles: That was a nice surprising success…that he was able to pump more through his plant like that.  It can open up the capacity.

   Mr. Gorka: Just to throw in on that to sort of give a little bit more information on it.  What they wanted from us is that in our permit for the capacity enhancement…it has a certain timeline.  But what came out of the engineer’s recommendation is the different timeline of pushing this farther into the construction period of January 2019 through May 2019.  It would require a permit change and things like that.  We pushed it farther out…that project we already applied for the loan and got approved.  Once again all of this information and everything that we’ve been talking about is in here.  You can just read it at your leisure.  It is straight forward on where we are and how we are going to get there.  That is already baked in so we still have a year or two…and we have not heard back from the OEPA.  We submitted to them our stress analysis but they haven’t responded.  There again…

   Mr. Sayles: Just about everything that I have said there is on the condition that EPA is okay with our analysis.

   Mr. Gorka: They are kind of notorious…they don’t do anything fast.  I don’t know if you guys get that feeling.  The EPA kind of…

   Mr. Sayles: If you are trying to get a permit to put your outfall in…but here it’s a good thing if they are taking their time to review that stuff.

   Mr. Gorka: Because then they understand that we are not going to meet the deadline.  I make it pretty clear to them that I’m not going to proceed until I know that you guys are happy enough.  They you are going to say “yes and that’s okay.”  I’m not going to start doing something without you guys being okay with that plan.  This is getting pushed a little bit further down the road as it is which is always okay with me.  Like what Mr. Sayles said the diminishing potential for reduction of future projects through the system because of what we are doing is there too.

4. Equalization Tanks Rehabilitation

   Mr. Sayles:  That project has been going on for a while and we are having problems.  There are some issues with some of the work.  One big problem that we ran into was the Erie Road tank it was not part of the cleaning program in this contract.  Right before we went out for bid one of the old mixers on Erie Road failed and some debris started building up.  But in conversation we all felt that the maintenance guys will get in there and get the mixer going again and it won’t be a problem.  That tank was almost perfectly clean before this mixer failed.  Quite a bit of stuff built up but we all figured that once maintenance had the mixer going again it would go away.  Well it didn’t and in the mean time we went out for bid without Erie Road cleaning in the contract.  So we had to clean Erie Road as part of the contract.  That amounts to $168,000.00 worth of sludge that had to be cleaned out of there.  That coming change order for that contract and conversely we are having a contractual dispute with the contractor on the air bubbler system for the three berried tanks.  Right now we are negotiating with them to just non-perform that.  And to back track and take a look at maybe some other options and re-bid that in a future contract.  That is pretty much where we are on that tank.  They are still doing the new mechanical mixers in the round tanks and that work in the other HVAC in replacing vents and all that stuff.  That is where that is.  Sometimes contracts go well and sometimes they don’t so we will get that straightened out.

   Mr. Harrold: Two words we never like to hear “change order.”

   Mr. Gorka: It wasn’t like we didn’t try.  We should have taken pictures.  Our guys took rotor tillers and went down Erie Road to lower them in…ground it all up and we flooded the tank.  We put burrs in the hydro banks and flooded it, filled it and ran the mixers.  I got a $2,000.00 electric bill.  Ran it for 24 hours and pumped it all out and it do any…these islands of sludge.  The mixers blew it in slabs on top of itself.

   Mr. Sayles: I also want to say that sometimes with a big change order like that you run the risks, because it wasn’t a bid number.  It was a change order number for a negotiated price with the contractor.  But the negotiated price fell right in the middle of the tank cleaning prices that they gave us for all of the other tanks.  In my opinion it’s a fair price and it’s a big number, but it’s a fair price for the amount of work that they had to do.  You should have taken a video of when they were in there cleaning.  It was amazing.

   Mr. Gorka: I have some pictures…it was thigh high in some places.  It was the nastiest job.  We were cutting it with jetters in slabs like a cake.  They had to break it up and suck it through these umbilical’s all the way out to the street.  It was just tedious.  These guys had suits on and within an hour they were covered with crap.  From head to toe they had the masks on and everything.  It was one of the most miserable things that I’ve seen.  I don’t know what they got paid but not enough.

   Mr. Harrold: Next is the Equalization Basin Control Structure Rehabilitation…does that tie into this too?

   Mr. Gorka: That ties into that.

   Mr. Sayles: This was a job that we did separately.  The control stricter for the retention basin at the site that retention…on the other side of the river and the control structure basin right in front of Eastlake City Hall.  We’ve had some problems with hydrogen sulfide gas building up, which when it mixes with water and air it creates sulfuric acid.  The concrete is beaten up in those chambers.  We got OPWC money to do a project to rehabilitate those and coat those with a lining that will resist the acid build-up.  We’ve actually hired Burgess & Niple as a sub-contractor to CT Consultants to do that design project.  They are working on that and as they did their investigation they’ve come up with some options on more expensive products.  But they are way better options then we were thinking originally.  I don’t know the exact name of the product, but a urethane coating.  We’ve had to a just the budget numbers on that and in fact there might have been some legislation that went in front of Eastlake not that long ago.

   Mr. Gorka: The legislation for paying for it was just passed.

   Mr. Sayles: So that hasn’t gone out for bid yet, but that will be this summer when they will do that project.  Those chambers…all of the metal inside are just gone and the concrete is flaking off.  The siphon basin is in worse shape than this one out here, because we have a long force main pump station going into the other one.  Around several years ago there were a couple of projects out there to deal with this corrosion problem back out in the system. 

   Mr. Gorka: The up sizing to a better coating system…we put a new epoxy coating system in and I want to say that it was in 2002.  It is hanging in sheets and it got behind it and ate all of the concrete off.  It didn’t work…so let’s do something better this time.  That is my thought and it will cost more money then what we did last time…it clearly didn’t work.  It probably failed within a few years and nobody looked in there for a while.  It is eating everything up inside of there.  The good news is that if you look in your report we had some grant money on that too.  It was $75,000.00 in free money and a 0% loan or something like that.  We broke it into two pieces, which ended up benefiting us.  Mr. Sayles managed to get money for one and money for the other equalization rehab.

5. Equalization Basin Control Structure Rehabilitation

   There were no further questions or comments.

   Additional Comments

   Mr. Gorka: The only thing that I might add is that when we had our discussions with the EPA for the last permit cycle they seem to want…they don’t want to break anybody’s back.  They seem to want to it to meet their objective, which is for us to keep moving on the SSE plan.  To take on these projects and Quentin Rd. was clearly the most obvious one and East Island Dr. Overflow.  You could have a ten Quentin Rd. Overflows and one on East Island Dr….they are the same and we have limited East Island Dr. significantly diminished from the way that it was in the past.  With us extending the force main all the way to the plants.  So Planes Rd. comes all the way to the plant and it takes that water out of that system, especially on high flows.  It has helped considerable and I report that to the EPA in a 15 year or whatever it has been.  Twelve or thirteen years we have had maybe twenty events there, but when we do…right into the marina.  The last guys that were in from the Recon Mission, that was one of the places that they spent way more time then the first guys did, because they were interested in other stuff.  We have not heard back from them and every time I say “well we haven’t heard anything from them.”  So I don’t know what they are going to say to our responses on their responses.  We will see how it goes and what they say.  Once again it will set up just to craft it and that is part of a plan.  East Island is in the plan.  It’s not in the current plan, but that is part of the plan.  This is where we are with everything else and to explain where we are on everything else and what we are going to do.  We are going be evaluating into March of 2021, which is another permit cycle.  With that being said I have a feeling that the OEPA…the people that were there at that time know that Waverly 2 is the next cycle.  They even brought out the guy that usually…really brutal and he let it slide.  So I know that he is going…and I am sure that they are going to tag some stuff in our next permit.  We will see that…we have to apply almost a year before the permit expires.  They will come out in the summer of 2019 and start telling us what they thing we’re going to do.

   Mr. Woodin: Where is Waverly 2…on the other side of Vine St.?

   Mr. Gwydir: It will cross over Vine St.

   Mr. Gorka: That is our next segment is up there.  Most likely something is going to happen on East Island Dr. in my opinion anyway.

   Mr. Gwydir: I would say almost sure that just keeps showing up in all of the reports and the correspondence.

   Mr. Harrold: I don’t know how the others feel but I think that maintenance program system is going to be a great help to you guys.

   Mr. Gorka: It will certainly provide a lot of data.  So that everybody will have some information.

   Mr. Harrold: Like you said if it can prevent you from cleaning a sewer that doesn’t need cleaning, because it is all in the program.  It shows you that it has been done.

   Mr. Woodin: What’s the time frame on your request for that?

   Mr. Gorka: The guy was ready to do install and start up in December.  He said that if you can do it before the end of the year.  I have to have approval to even do it.  He said that I only need $3,000.00 up front.  Obviously he was trying to make a sales quota.

   Mr. Carr: Now you have to wait until the end of June to get your deal again.

   Mr. Gorka: He’s been emailing me still.  He wanted to know when this meeting was.

   Mr. Sayles: It’s in Mr. Gorka’s budget so he can react as soon as his budget is passed.

   Mr. Gorka: I guess Willoughby is having a bunch of hearings.

   Mr. Woodin: This month is the next meeting.

   Mr. Gorka: You guys are going to get it all done in one night again?

   Mr. Woodin: It is easy when the director’s are as good as they are it’s just that easy.

   Mr. Harrold: We went through 92 pages in zoning last night in two hours.

   Mr. Gwydir: Mr. Gorka presuming that Eastlake concurs to go along with this is there any special legislation needed on our part if that is the way?

   Mr. Gorka: For the…

   Mr. Gwydir: For the mobile 311.

   Mr. Gorka: I don’t know I would have to look at the SSDCP…we already have legislation for enforcement in both of the satellite communities.  I don’t know if that applies in any way that anything because it’s a shared….

   Mr. Woodin: What if we as individual cities want to tap into that with our Service Departments?  Then at what point in time how would we get involved in that program?

   Mr. Gorka: At some point and depending on the soft ware expenses I have a feeling that those can be pro-rated…depending on what department is using it.  Say if the Building Department ended up using the same service and whatever fees are associated would be theirs not ours.

   Mr. Gwydir: Mr. Gorka do I recall correctly in that if other departments or layers want to use that the licensing fee to use it does not change to you.  Is that correct?

   Mr. Gorka: I think that it does. 

   Mr. Gwydir: It does okay.

   Mr. Gorka: I think that you have to pay more.  This was just the water and sewer package.  There are layers but it is scale able.

   Mr. Gwydir: If you wanted to build another layer if Service wanted…

   Mr. Gorka: You could add those as you move forward.

   Mr. Sayles: We would probably have to figure out a way on how the Willoughby Street Department fund reimburses the WPCC for the licensing fee.

   Mr. Gorka: The way that it works with me and I think that it will be good is as long as I make this a capital expense it’s 50/50.  Eastlake’s going to benefit…Willoughby’s system and both of you guys can use it.  We are going to host it and try to manage it, run it, and educate.  Your only out of pocket expense will be getting Mr. Mastrocola a tablet or something like that.  We will let you know and I think they gave us in the meeting that we had they provided us with the most compatible and what is the one to use that is ideal for their system to work.  It wasn’t a whole lot of money either.  I don’t know if we need to do anything there.  It’s not unlike the skata system that we have.  For the skata system we spent $400,000.00 on it.  We went into all of your pump stations in both cities.  The WPCC tentacles are in your pump stations and all the way in through the skata.  We stop at where your wire touches our stuff.  We go out and fix all of that stuff but we don’t fix your pump station.  We fix all of the skata, because it belongs to us, but both of the cities share in the O & M costs and the capital cost when it got put in.  That is kind of how I look at things and it’s just another tentacle of WPCC going somewhere. 

   Mr. Sayles: It works out pretty well and the fact that you are able to do this.  These guys view it as one city.  If Willoughby wanted to do a solution and Eastlake wanted to do solutions you would each be paying….

   Mr. Gorka: the start up cost is fifteen each and eleven each so cut it in half by doing it this way, which I think is a good thing.  Then it would be just another joint facility…it can always be redefined as another piece of joint.

   There were no further questions or comments.

   Adjournment

 

The meeting was adjourned at 7:15 p.m.

 

 

tms

 

 

APPROVED:  _____________________

 

 

 

DATE:  _________________________