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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-SJC-2009-06-10 SJC MEETING June 10, 2009 SJC Members Staff Wade Wykstra, Chair Bill Gray Mayor Carolyn Peterson Supervisor Herb Engman Erik Whitney Scott Gibson Supervisor MaryAnn Sumner Pat Leary Rich DePaolo Jeff Soule Dan Ramer Steve Thayer Mary Tomlan Joel Zumoff Absent Guests Christopher Kalwara, Johnson Controls Kathy Pomponio, Verizon Wireless Jarod Lusk, Nixon Peabody Ken Cowley, Aerosmith Wade called the meeting to order at 12:40PM. Approval of May minutes – Mary Tomlan noted that Fred Gillette represents the DEC which is the regulatory body that oversees the discharge permit for the plant and he is satisfied that we’re going about evaluating the hydolysate correctly. Carolyn motioned to approve the minutes with the above changes. Seconded by Mary, the motion passed without dissent. MaryAnn abstained. Verizon Monopole – Wade introduced representatives from Verizon Wireless and briefly explained that there have been discussions regarding a site on the IAWWTF property to place a cellular monopole. Kathy Pomponio introduced herself as project manager, and Jarod Lusk as Verizon’s attorney. Kathy gave a brief background on discussions that have previously been held with the City of Ithaca. Ken Cowley has done most of the research for finding a suitable location. Ken passed out a conceptual plan put together on the recommendation of the Board of Public Works and stated that he and Erik Whitney walked around the facility and came up with a location that would best suit all parties involved. Verizon is proposing a 120 foot monopole. It was noted that we are slated for a coal tar clean-up in 2010 that could affect the construction process. 1 Herb asked who would be served by adding a new tower. Kathy responded that Verizon has a need to expand its capacity for the entire Ithaca area and is looking for multiple sites to attain that goal. Carolyn asked about future expansion of the plant and how that would be affected by a tower. Bill and Dan Ramer explained that there are options available for any future expansion needs. Joel asked if other companies (Sprint, AT&T) would be able to use the same tower as opposed to building their own to expand their capacities. Ken explained that the towers are designed to serve multiple carriers. Rich asked why add additional towers as opposed to upgrading computer capacity on the existing towers. Kathy responded that with cellular technology, there are only a certain number of channels available. Once those channels are used up, a different facility must be provided to add more channels (increase capacity). Scott asked how the tower will be powered. Ken said that they will have to investigate that further once they know that there is an interest in the project. Kathy said that the construction time is around 3 months and the Ithaca sites are top priority once the approval process is completed and a lease agreement has been negotiated. The discussion was tabled for the next SJC meeting. Waterfront Trail Resolution – Herb questioned the 20-30 foot placing of the fence. Jeff said that after walking the site, it does not seem to be an issue. He also noted that the width of the permanent easement is not mentioned in the resolution. Herb proposed adding a 16’ permanent easement to the language in the RESOLVED (paragraph 8) portion of the resolution. Bill noted that Tim must have site control to submit the drawings and get the approvals from DOT. He proposed that the first RESOLVED state that “the IAWWTP endorses the City’s proposal in concept to establish” which would give Tim the site control which he needs to proceed while giving the SJC the ability to change and fine tune the language in the resolution. Herb made a motion to add as a final RESOLVED: RESOLVED, that the City will provide a draft of such instrument to the SJC and counsel for the SJC for review and approval prior to its execution. Seconded by MaryAnn, the motion passed unanimously. Energy Reduction – Chris Kalwara, Johnson Controls Chris updated the Board on the progress of the Energy Reduction study and stated that they have submitted the grant application to the EFC. He said it was confirmed that the application has been received by the EFC. The announcement for the grant recipients has been scheduled for 2 June 24, 2009. There is $38M available in the Federal Stimulus package for New York State and we have requested $6M based on an estimated $6.7M project cost. The EFC schedule states that contracts must be executed and construction started by January 1, 2010. Johnson Controls still has to do detailed engineering. They are now requesting authorization to do the detailed engineering on the items previously identified. This will entail 3.5 weeks starting Monday, June 15th of detailed engineering on the identified measures only at a cost of $24,000 which would be applied to the Project Development Agreement, which will hopefully be acted upon at the July meeting. The items to be investigated under this authorization to proceed include: Updating Co-Gens Dissolved Oxygen Controls Digester Mixer Pump Monitoring Software Digester Feed Pumps Process Control Improvements Lighting Facility Management System Variable Frequency Drives on HV’s Hot Water Pumps Jeff asked to include the digester covers. Herb moved to authorize the Notice to Proceed, noting that it may be a risk that is worth taking. The motion was seconded by Carolyn and approved unanimously with digester covers added. Carolyn noted Erik’s (E-Mail) letter to elected officials in higher offices regarding this project and encouraged everyone to do the same. Financial Report – Steve Thayer Steve distributed the current financial reports. Septage collection has been slow. All quarterly payments have been received from the partners. Revenues exceeded expenditures by $469,000. He said that if anyone has any questions, he will answer them at anytime. Miscellaneous Plant Improvements is the only active Capital Project as far as expenditures. The 2010 Budget planning is beginning in July. Operators Report Summary– Dan Ramer Kruger is analyzing the Actiflow computer for hardware and/or software problems and we have a spare at this time. Auburn Armature is constructing a replacement Actiflow Poly Control Panel. A series of blockages in the primary scum suction line have been removed and the grease tank has been cleaned. 3 We have met with Stearns & Wheler to discuss the final design of the septage receiving facility. We are planning to visit other facilities to learn more about different septage screening equipment. A contractor for DEC has inspected the underground fuel tank system and identified three deficiencies in our current operation. We are in process of rectifying the deficiencies. Rich asked for elaboration on the identified deficiencies. Dan responded that it was found that the sump has collected some rain water due to a faulty top cover. This was immediately corrected the next day. We will need to inspect that once a month. We also learned that our small tanks must be registered in the facilities quantity. There were no integrity issues with the tanks. A contract for the purchase and installation of the Fire Alarm Panel upgrade is currently in the City Attorney’s office for review. A second final tank is currently out of service. One of the control diversion pumps failed and was pulled out by a crane and taken for diagnosis and repair. JCI submitted a proposal to EFC for a $6M grant for Facility Improvement Modifications. Ed Gottlieb continues to pursue the unwanted medicine collection day. Carolyn asked if this is a county-wide effort based on the location of Triphammer Mall. Dan replied that the County will be involved and that the site is free and large enough for such an effort. It will require security and police involvement. Staff met with Susan Brock regarding Emerson enforcement proceedings. Dan and Ed G. inspected the NYSEG MGP clean up site. The Operator/Instrumentation Trainee position is currently posted. Jim Goodreau, Operator Trainee has passed his Basic Operations course with a score of 99 and has completed the Basic Laboratory course at SUNY Morrisville. We have given tours to approximately 120 people during the month of May. The Doppler Current Profiler has been deployed in the Cayuga Lake Inlet between Cass Park and the Golf Course. Septage Received YTD = 1.1M gallons Grease received YTD = 0.1M gallons Carolyn noted that she was pleased that Jose’s presentation was well prepared to respond to the Ithaca Journal’s article on Cornell and Lake Source Cooling. 4 5 Engineering Report Summary – Scott Gibson Phosphorous Removal – Nothing new to report regarding Crane Hogan’s claims. Head-works Loading Study – Round 1 of the study results has been prepared by the laboratory and should be issued this week. We are awaiting the quality control and evaluation report. Jimmie Joe Carl should be invited to the July meeting to give a short presentation on the results. Cornell Hydrolysate Resolution – Pat Leary The current draft includes: #4 will require a full characterization of the waste from Cornell prior to disposal #8 this version includes the condition of the results of the Maximum Allowable Head-works Loading study. If we wait for these results, the final resolution will have this condition taken out. The final WHEREAS also references the results of the HW Loading study. It was agreed to leave the resolution as is for now. On the Findings Statement that was received from Susan Brock, there is a change on the second to last page which deletes references to the phenols. Phenols will be included with any other pollutant and not mentioned specifically. Also, the mention of incineration from the old Findings Statement has been stricken. Pat noted that the name of the Chief Operator should be changed. Wade noted that he would like to be prepared to vote on this in August. On a motion, the meeting was adjourned. The next meeting is scheduled for July 8, 2009 at 12:30PM.