HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-SJC-2024-09-11SJC MEETING
September 11, 2024
SJC Board members
P Robert Cantelmo, City of Ithaca P Rod Howe, Town of Ithaca
PZ Clyde Lederman, City of Ithaca E Rob Rosen, Town of Ithaca
P Scott Reynolds, City of Ithaca PZ Ray Burger, Town of Dryden
E Dave Warden, City of Ithaca P Jason Leifer, Town of Dryden
P Rich DePaolo, Town of Ithaca
P = Present, PZ = Present via zoom, E = Excused
Staff
P Wendy Cole, City of Ithaca P Peter Wernsdorfer, Camden Group
P Scott Gibson, City of Ithaca P Joe Slater, Town of Ithaca
A Mike Thorne, City of Ithaca P David O’Shea, Town of Ithaca
PZ Ken Scherrieble, Camden Group PZ Ami Beeley, City of Ithaca
P = Present, PZ = Present via zoom, PP = Present via phone, A= Absent
Guests
Chris Kianka, Lectre
Meeting called to order at 1:00 pm.
1) Agenda Review and Approval of Minutes
• Agenda review – No updates
• Approval of August 14, 2024 minutes, Scott Reynolds moved and Rod Howe seconds.
No edits to the minutes. All in favor 5:0.
2) Financial Report - Wendy Cole
• Financial Report as of 8/31/24 – See attached.
Discussion:
• Highlighted treatment supplies and sludge disposal fees as they are high for the year due
to increased cost. Must consider for next year.
• Debt schedule included it in packet.
3) Discuss and consider preliminary 2025 operating expenses budget- Mike Thorne
• Some operating expenses have gone up. Projected a 10 to 15% increase in treatment
supplies for chemicals.
• Sludge disposal increase, raising truck receipts rates. That goes into effect next month.
Waiting for automatic truck record service to come in. This will provide radio frequency
I.D.’s for the plant to know the size of the tankage. Charging trucks by tankage instead of
by gallon, to increase revenue.
• Increase in contracts for Camden coupled with salary increase. Every time we lose a city
employee we must increase Camden’s contract. We need to hire 4 operators, 1 Chief
operator or Assistant Chief.
• Three options.
o Use $300,000 to hire new positions to work side by side with Camden Group.
o If that does not work reassess where that money is going.
o Hire Camden full-time.
Hiring should take around 4 months, Chief or Assistant Chief may take longer.
• Implications for Camden group if they hire new City employees. If more staff and trained
Camden will pull their employees out and even out the budget.
• There will be no resolution today on outstanding questions, as we need Mike Thorne for
discussion.
4) Operations and Engineering Report - Peter Wernsdorfer
• See attached for Report.
Discussion:
• Frustration with contractors such as Howdan (the blowers). They are not contacting us
back. We cancelled the contract. Nyseg will not call back about questions we have on
battery wall to tell us savings or any information on the product.
5) Status update: Water meter replacement project, interceptor flow meters- Scott Gibson,
Chris Kianca (Lectre)
Discussion:
• Replaced over 90% of the flow meters with new digital meters. Four sets of old meters
that are on the verge of failing will be replaced when they do.
• Check the meters on a quarterly basis.
• The meters are ultra sonic plus level sensors.
• The maintenance is on demand if something goes wrong. It is checked on a quarterly
basis.
• Calibration: all installations were done to the specks required.
• The system is 90% modernized at this point.
• The information has vastly improved with the new meters.
• The plant is responsible for collecting, overseeing, and keeping up with all the data and
information collected for the new meter, but it is currently short staffed.
• Two ownership agreements expire 12/31/2025. The Gang of Six Agreement expires
5/15/2026, and joint interceptor agreement has yet to be determined.
• Numbers and reports on flow meters need to be done by November.
• Update on Water Meters – 1600 meters have been replaced. The installation company has
completed their contract for the year. They will be back in March to continue.
6) Misc. updates-
a) City of Ithaca Workgroup – Mike Thorne
b) B&L CIP – Scott Gibson
• No update on B&L waiting for response from flex tech.
c) Administrative Compliance Order
• June the EPA came and did an audit of the filing system.
• Plants are required to find different users that meet different requirements under
pretreatment systems.
• EPA comes every 5-10 years.
• We have three permit programs - Cornell Vet School, Evaporated Metal Films,
Ithaca Beer Company.
• ACO -Administrative Compliance Order to bring your programs back into
compliance.
• We had a violation because we could not find the original signed copy of
monitoring reports. We had the electronic copy, but it wasn’t acceptable.
• Specific self-monitoring report from Ithaca brewery where they had a PH
violation. No follow-up or check to see if their calibrations were done to make
sure they were back into compliance.
• Never provided public notice for evaporated metal films for failure to submit a
report on time.
• Each permit holder must be evaluated for the slug control plan and keep them
updated and current. A slug control plan is an industrial spill prevention report.
• Permits must be updated and rereleased.
• Evaporated Metal Film was administrative violation not chemical. Ithaca Beer
had a Chemical and administrative violation.
• EPA gave us dates to have everything in. Missing data from IBC, the public
notice for EMF late report, evaluate each user for slug reports by 9/28/2024.
Revise and update permits by 10/13/2024. Provide missing copies of monitoring
reports and update enforcement response plan by 10/28/2024.
d) Plant improvements
• New Climate control system for the lab that will be installed in a few weeks.
• New Valve modifications to be installed.
Agenda fulfilled, no other business to discuss. Rich Depaolo adjourned the meeting at 2:46
pm.
The next SJC meeting is October 9, 1:00 pm, at Ithaca Town Hall, Aurora Conference Room.
07-24-OP-REPORT.docx page 1
Operator’s and Engineer’s Report
SJC Meeting
11 September, 2024
1. Operations
a. Regulatory Compliance – We were in compliance and effluent quality remains extremely high.
b. Personnel – We were not successful in bringing new talent on board. Of the qualified candidates, the starting
salary was considerably lower than their current compensation.
c. Blowers – We continue to work with
d. Micro Turbines – The two units are still offline. The contractor is grappling with their own personnel shortages.
We have the parts in-house and await the warranty service.
e. Asset Management – We continue implementation. We are tagging valves and creating the inventory. In
September, we will trial the platform on a tablet.
f. Clarifiers – Personnel shortages hampered our starting this project. We are rescheduled for end of September.
g. Boiler Replacement – Once training is complete, this project will be wrapped up.
h. Facility Improvements –The lab VRF system is scheduled for installation in October.
2. Staff Management
a. The morning huddle, team meetings, and check-ins continue.
3. Reporting –
a. Regulatory reports were sent as scheduled.
4. Business, Long-Term Development
a. Capital Planning – We provided data and O&M Manuals to B&L.
b. Energy Management – We will complete the regression model for energy use this month. We have secured
three years of hourly interval data from NYSEG.
5. Operations Data – We are using the dirty methane boiler to consume excess gas instead of the flare.