WPCC COMMITTEE MEETING

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

The joint WPCC meeting was held at the Eastlake City Hall. Chair and City of Eastlake Mr. Spotton opened the meeting at approximately 5:30 p.m.

In attendance from the City of Eastlake: Chair Mr. Spotton, Members Mr. Meyers, Mr. Kasunick, Council-at-Large Mr. Evers, 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, Council Clerk Mrs. Novak and Willoughby City Engineer Jim Sayles. 

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

QUENTIN ROAD EQUALIZATION BASIN PROJECT:

Mr. Sayles: There are going to be some skylights that will be visible. We have built five of these tanks around Willoughby and Eastlake in the 1980’s and those tanks were built with lighting systems and wash down system inside of them.  All of that has corroded away to nothing.  We are a lot smarter now then we were thirty years ago.  And we have some new technology but we don’t want to put lighting and wash down water systems in these tanks.  This tank will have skylights to help the maintenance in getting in there.  It will also have a much more sophisticated wash down system that is literally a tipping bucket.  At one end of the tank after the sewage has been pumped out and the tank is empty, there will be some debris in there.  At the far end of the tank there are these buckets that are basically long tubes.  They will fill up with water and they will tip and it will be like a flushing mechanism.  It will just run down the floor and wash the solids away.  Originally thirty years ago when those tanks first went on line there were a few issues with odor, because we really didn’t know how to operate them.  Very quickly the Waste Water Treatment Plant personnel developed a technique to avoid the odor issues.  They were able to get things cleaned periodically without causing any odor problems.  The tanks have to be ventilated so there is a potential for some odor.  With these washed out systems it works really, really well.  In fact I think that since the 1980’s that there have been any odor complaints from those tanks.  Members of the Waste Water staff could answer that.  Once we figured out how to operate them they really don’t generate odor complaints.  A lot of people don’t realize where these are.  There is one sitting right out here in front of Eastlake City Hall.  Many people don’t know that they are out there.  There are two dooms that are above ground.  There is one on Erie Road and the other one is in an industrial park in the City of Willoughby.  They are obvious but there are three others that are buried.  One is at the corner of the road near Euclid Ave., there is a tank by the shopping center and there is one by the marina on the east side of the river by the condos.  These have been out in the system and operating very well and we don’t expect any problems here.  In fact this will be a better tank and it will operate much more smoothly with the better cleaning mechanism.  The Environmental Review was done in cooperation with EPA.  They look as to whether or not there are endangered species that will be affected and potentially there are.  Nothing is really found on that property that we know of as an endangered species.  We are in the area of Indian bats and those species were in that area.  So we will have to take those precautions and only cut down trees during the proper time of the year to avoid those issues.  We are close to Lake Erie, but the configuration of the tank is done that we are going to stay as far away as we can from the top of that bank so that we don’t get into the coastal zone.  The management zone that the Department of Natural Resources regulates that kicks in a whole other set of issues that we would have to deal with.  So we are avoiding that.  The other major issue or major questions is how much is this going to cost?  We are getting a loan for approximately $5,183,000.00.  Once we open bids we will have more accurate numbers and hopefully it will be less than that.  That is the amount of the loan.   The analysis that CT Consultants has done in working with the Finance Departments of the cities of Willoughby and Eastlake there are no sewer rate increase that are needed as a result of this project.  Certainly as move down that $50 Million path for the future projects I am sure that there will be sewer rate increases that are ultimately needed.  But not for this project right now.  I went through most of the pertinent facts in here and Mr. Tigue from CT Consultants who put this together is in the audience.  Mr. Tigue is there any other facts that we need to bring up?

Mr. Tigue: There is just a real quick issue. When we did the estimate for $5,183,000.00 that is basic on our estimate.  When the actual bids come in not only will we be working with actual bid prices but the interest rates have gone down from 1.77%.  It is significantly low and it went down to 1.26% for this one.  It is almost free interest but not quite.  It is significant and we don’t know what is going to happen in the next two months.  December is the month where the interest…because that is the month of the award.  We will know at that point exactly how much the loans are going to cost and what we are going to have to commit to for the twenty year period.  Other than that the facts from the summary handles just about everything we have on it.  If there are any questions that is the purpose of the public meeting.

Mr. Sayles: If anyone has any questions we will do our best to answer them. I guess there is one member of the public.

REGOGNITION OF PUBLIC:

Member of the audience: I was coming for the entertainment value.

John Farwell, 36823 Lakeshore Blvd., Eastlake

Mr. Farwell: How and I don’t have any objections with what you guys are doing. I just have curiosity more than anything partially because I live on the lake.  How big is this tank going to be?  I know that it is going to hold a million gallons.  What is the size and what are the dimensions?

Mr. Sayles: I have the drawings here and hopefully I will be able to collect that off of here quickly.

Mr. Farwell: Is that a drawing of where the tank is going to go?

Mr. Sayles: Yes it is.

Mr. Farwell: Maybe I could look at that. I know that it is going to be underground.

Mr. Sayles: It is 145 feet by 90 feet.

Mr. Farwell: How deep?

Mr. Sayles: This is the drawing. Quentin Road is here and Lakeshore Boulevard is here.  The existing pump station building sits right there.  It is going to be 145 feet by 90 feet.

Mr. Farwell: So the explanations that this is going to be 200 feet Lakeshore Bluff. So is this towards the lake?  How far…How far is it going to sit from the road?

Mr. Sayles: It looks like it is about 50 or 60 feet from the road. That is the existing building right there.  It is going to be just beyond that.

Mr. Farwell: So from there to there about 140 feet.

Mr. Sayles: About 145 feet is what Mr. Gwydir said.

Mr. Gwydir: Yes.

Mr. Farwell: So 145 feet by…

Mr. Gwydir: 90 feet and about fifteen feet deep to the inside bottom of the slag.

Mr. Farwell: My concern was and being an owner on the lake. You want to make sure that you do everything you can to protect that property from being disturbed.  I don’t know if you guys have looked at any type of erosion limits or erosion that has happened over the course of the last 15 to 20 years.  You have and has that been taken into consideration and are you planning to do any type of erosion control to protect the basin?

Mr. Sayles: Not at this time. We are so far away from the lakeshore it would be several years before anything happens there.  Basically we want to keep everything undisturbed between us and the lake.  So that we don’t get down there and mess things up.  Now if the lake keeps crouching in between Willoughby and Eastlake then we are going to have to do something.  Eastlake has a big storm sewer outfall and eventually erosion could affect the tank.  But it would be quite a few years from now.  No and a part of this project that wasn’t part of the plan.

Mr. Farwell: I know the property to the east was just purchased by a new home owner. Has anybody contacted that home owner?

Mr. Sayles: They were notified for this public meeting.

Mr. Farwell: You guys are doing a lot of construction and a lot of excavating next to some bodies property. I don’t know what…and like I said I will have to go out there and look to see how far you guys are going towards the lake.  That is precious materials to make sure that you guys don’t impact the erosion that could potentially happen.

Mr. Sayles: Actually there is a fairly significant chunk of the cost is an earth retaining system to dig a hole this deep. Very often the inclination is to just lay the slop back…you go 15 feet deep now you have a giant hole at the surface.  We are actually spending more money so that we can do a vertical excavation to minimize the impact on the surrounding area.

Mr. Farwell: So 15 ft x 90 ft x 147 ft?

Mr. Gwydir: 145 ft if you recall there is a shed or an old garage that is still left on the vacant lot. The tank will be in front of that and it won’t reach as far back.  One of the reasons for picking up the immediate parcel to the east was to pull the tank away from the edge of the lake.  We don’t want to be anywhere near escarpment or the erosion zone.  It was also to pull it away from that resident to the east.  I believe that we are about 90 ft away from that at our nearest point.  All of those were considerations going into it.  Another reason why we picked up the parcel is because we could make the tank a little bit cheaper by buying that property and moving the dimensions of the tank.  There will be some landscaping around them.  There is a landscaping plan so there will be some landscaping put around the tank after it is in.  I believe that it will be park like.  Similar to what is out in front of here.  There is that basin but there is grass and it won’t be noticeable after a fashion.  Most of the guts that are associated with the tank will be hidden in the existing pump station.  There will be a generator out front but I believe that will be the only above ground improvement that is associated with the tank.  We have been able to get most of it back into the old pump station.

Mr. Farwell: It seems like it is pretty well thought out and you guys have done a lot of due diligence on it. That is really my only questions and concerns.  I thought that it was intriguing that you guys picked that spot to put the pump in the ground.

Mr. Sayles: Part of the reason why it happened is that the fact that the pumping station is there. The sewers from this corner of Eastlake all come down to that point.  That is the most feasible and economical place to put a retention basin.  Theoretically you put this somewhere else but you would have to make a giant pumping station to get it some other location.  As far as picking that location we are kind of trapped.

Mr. Farwell: That portion of Willowick?

Mr. Sayles: Further west.

Mr. Farwell: Yeah further west and that area of Eastlake is where a lot of the basements that we flooded back in 2006. Hopefully that will help to alleviate….

Mr. Sayles: It will help but the 2006 flood was way bigger and I am sure that it was more than one million gallons of excess water in the system at that time. But it will help.

Mr. Gwydir: If I could follow on as part of the EPA operating permit that Mr. Sayles spoke too that requires us to build this basin. There is also a requirement for a relief sewer to be built up on Waverly Road in two phases.  That is also to address the potential for basement flooding in the area.  The first thing that we have to do build this equalization basin to accept the flow and the second thing is that we have to make sure that all of the flows can get there for this design frequency storm.  As Mr. Sayles mentioned the 2006 storm was way out of the park in terms of flow.  It may or may not work in that case but in most cases this will be more than adequate. 

Mr. Woodin: Mr. Sayles will you talk about that this tank is below ground the area above the tank it would be fenced off and unavailable for any access or will it become park land?

Mr. Sayles: I think that we are fencing it off right Mr. Gwydir?

Mr. Gwydir: It will be the whole thing.

Mr. Woodin: Is that area accessible today?

Mr. Sayles: Where the tank is going is actually private property parcels that we have acquired for this project. The majority of the tank will be open grass area and there will be a fence that is a little bit larger…the area now the fence around the existing pump station will get a little bit bigger to accommodate our modifications over there.  Where the skylights are there will be a fence around them coming at the north end of the equalization basin to protect the skylights. 

Mr. Woodin: How often do you think that this thing will have stuff in it?

Mr. Sayles: Many times a year. Theoretically it will only fill up every several years it will fill up to its maximum.  But it will have flow able sewage in it multiple times a year.

Kim Evers, 34137 Beachpark Ave., Eastlake

Mr. Evers: My question is twofold along with the erosion line, which was a very good question by the way. The traffic on Lakeshore Boulevard as we all know is very busy route between Willoughby and Eastlake.  How will the traffic be maintained during the construction?  Will it be shut down to one lane at times?  How will it affect the resident’s?

Mr. Sayles: We don’t anticipate any work out into Lakeshore Boulevard. There won’t be any lane closures exact to say maybe when the contractor is dropping off a piece of equipment or picking it up.  There will be a temporary lane closure to load or unload something.  That is possible, but there should be enough work area for them to pull off and take care of that.  The biggest thing is going to be the trucking of the dirt.  There are going to be many truck loads of dirty going on Lakeshore Boulevard.  We will be restricting them to state routes only so that they won’t go up through any neighborhoods.  We don’t know where they will find a dump site for the dirt.  Another requirement of the EPA is that you cannot dump this dirt on the lake front to help a private homeowner with…that will specifically be prohibited for the contractor to made do with those kinds of arrangements. In fact the dump site will have to be approved by the EPA.  There will be an impact because there will be quite a few dump trucks.  A lot of dirt will come out and then there will be a lot of concrete trucks to build the concrete basin.  Then you have to back fill it with dirt to go around it.  Some of that dirt that was hauled out will be brought back to back fill around it.  I’ve seen much fewer truck loads coming back.

Mr. Gwydir: Just one more thing Mr. Evers. There is a provision in the notes as well for repairs to Lakeshore Boulevard immediately adjacent to the site where they are pulling in and out because there are the twisting movements on the pavement.  The pavement could take a beating.

Angela Schmidt, 1040 Quentin Road, Eastlake

Ms. Schmidt: You said something about enlarging or doing something to the pump station. So are you going into the park or is the park going to be left alone?

Mr. Gwydir: The Park for the most part will be left alone. There will be a little drive expansion as you are facing the pump station from the road way.  It will be to the left that will move out and the fence will move out slightly not significantly.  The tank itself will be built off to the right of the pump station.  The left edge of the tank will be at the right edge of the pump station building.  Mr. Sayles has a drawing for you.

Mr. Sayles: That is the existing pumping station and these are the two new parcels so that the park is…a lot of the work is going to be over here.

Ms. Schmidt: Will they consider planting…

Mr. Spotton: Are there any other questions? There are no other questions and there is nothing else on the agenda.

There were no further questions or comments.

The meeting was adjourned.

tms

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