Agenda - Public Works Committee - 02/16/2010

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Background: SUMMARY FOR 2009 UTILITIES DEPARTMENT By: John Nelson, Utilities Supervisor CASE # This summary is meant to be a brief review of the activities completed by utility department personal in 2009. In 2009 the utilities water division pumped and treated 640,257,600 gallons of drinking water. This amount is up 2.1% from the 2008 season total of 626,872,700 gallons. The peak day in 2009 was June 4 where 4,666,983 gallons was produced; the average daily consumption rate in 2009 was 1,754,000 gallons per day. We are required to do 369 Fluoride and Chlorine samples a Year once a day performed at public works and one sent to the department of health a quarter, there are also 120 Coliform bacteria samples collected per year and these are sent to a private lab for testing. Also the Department of health visits several times a year to test for Nitrate, Nitrite, Inorganics, Radon, Volatile organics, Trihalomethanes /Haloacetic acids, synthetic organics and Radio chemicals there is also a surprise visit to check on cleanliness and required items needed in public water plants. All of these samples and visits are instrumental for safe drinking water for or residents To date, for the water meter exchange program we have exchanged 1,926 of 3,916 water meters on our system. This number includes every commercial water or meter larger than the 5/8" installed in homes. The utilities department has been collecting all the quarterly meter reads for the radio read meters, this process has been working great with 100% reads each quarter. We responded to 1,342 Gopher State one locates, and inspected 63 sewer and water connections to new homes. In 2009 the sewer division took possession of a new Vac -Con combination vacuum jetter sewer cleaning truck, this piece of equipment is a first for our City. This truck first went out in early March to combat several flooding conditions after the snow melt; it was used several times to thaw storm sewers under flooded roads, utilizing high pressure water. In the past a common technique was to pump out the water and pour salt in the catch basins and then barricade off the flooded roads waiting for Mother Nature's assistance. We made a goal to jet and vacuum 100% of our sanitary sewer system including all seven of the City's lift stations which we accomplished by November of 2009. In prior years we spent $15,000 on contracting this function. This amount only allowed 1/9 of the system to be cleaned annually even though the League of Minnesota cities (or insurer) recommended 1/3 of the system to be cleaned annually. In 2010 we will focus on cleaning and televising 1/3 of the system as the league of Minnesota cities recommends, and televising 1 /10 of the system, and creating a maintenance schedule for sanitary sewer mains as follows: