Wastewater Treatment Board

CITY OF CORTLAND WASTEWATER TREATMENT FACILITY Meeting Minutes Members: Da te : 7/ 27 /15 Ti me : 5 :30 p m Chairman John Troy – Present C on fe r en ce R o om , C or t la nd Wa st e wa t e r Vice Chair William Starr – Absent Commissioner Sally Horak – Present Commissioner Todd Morris – Present Village of McGraw Mayor Allan Stauber – Present Bruce Adams, Supt. of Wastewater – Present Meeting called to order at 5:28 p.m. Minutes from June 22, 2015, meeting for approval. Motion to approve the minutes from June 22, 2015, meeting by Sally Horak. Seconded by Todd Morris. UNANIMOUS Plant Manager’s Report: Plant Managers Report for July 27, 2015 (as written by Chief Adams) Administration– The issues surrounding our electrical contractor’s status as a WBE have not been resolved yet. It may be some time before they learn the outcome of their appeal. Until then, EFC is demanding documentation of good faith efforts to meet the 20% M/WBE requirement. The engineer is also still awaiting a revised utilization plan from our equipment supplier. The application for funding of the vermicomposting project as a government efficiency project will be finalized this week. Cortland, Homer and Cortlandville will participate as wood chip/leaf litter sources. Cortland, Virgil and Marathon will participate as biosolids sources. Dryden and Groton may yet participate as biosolids sources, but we do not have them on board at this time. The City is applying for a technical assistance grant to look at the infrastructure under Pomeroy Street. Our boilers are now up to date with regard to their insurance inspections. Tom McCall has tendered his resignation effective July 22. That leaves the department with four unfilled slots, two of which I intend to fill by promotion once staff members achieve the requisite certification. Operations– Seasonal tank cleanings as the unusually high flows have allowed. Despite the unseasonably high flows, we are still achieving greater than 90% removals for BOD and TSS. Technical issues with the SCADA switchover have left us running the disinfection system in manual. That has generally gone OK, but we did have an effluent chlorine violation on 7/19. We will likely be running in manual for several more weeks, since the SCADA integrator is off site pending the running of some I/O wiring in the primary complex. C’Ville Yoghurt’s product line is shift towards more 2% and full-fat products. This has proven to be a problem with our MBR pretreatment system. The membranes are rated for no more than 500 ppm of fat and the whey from these higher fat products has more than 2000 ppm of fat. We are accommodating the whey by continuing to use the MBR tank as a bioreactor but instead of running the permeate pump, we are pumping directly into the GBT holding tank and also pump some whey directly into the existing digesters. WWAB Minutes 27 July 2015 Page 2 of 4  Maintenance– The installation of the SBR equipment is substantially complete. In particular, the staff’s portion of the work is complete save for some punch-ticket items. The contractor is preparing to install the new effluent line and we anticipate start-up of the new process in the late-September/early October range. Seasonal grounds work. Tank maintenance as flows have allowed. Now that staff’s heavy involvement in project work has drawn to a close, we are catching up on preventive maintenance work orders. Bruce Adams Superintendent of Wastewater Motion to approve the Plant Manager’s Report by Sally Horak. Seconded by Todd Morris. UNANIMOUS Finance: Financial statements and abstracts dated 6/30/15, and 7/16/15, were submitted for approval. Motion to approve financial statements and abstracts by Todd Morris. Seconded by Sally Horak. UNANIMOUS Sewer Grievance: A sewer grievance application was received from Kui Chen on 7/22/15, for property located at 89 Bartlett Avenue, City of Cortland. Kui Chen reported that a pipe had burst outside of the residence and was buried under a large pile of snow. The water inside the pipe froze due to the cold temperatures and was, therefore, unable to detect the broken pipe until 2/27/15. The pipe was repaired at that time. Kui Chen is requesting relief towards the sewer portion of his billing. The board reviewed Kui Chen's application and John Troy made the recommendation to issue a credit of $1,004.00, maximum allowable based on Kui Chen's quarterly billing averages. Motion to approve a credit of $1,004.00, by John Troy. Seconded by Sally Horak. UNANIMOUS New Business: No new business Old Business: John Troy asked the board about the status of finding a possible candidate to fill the open board position (commissioner). The board members were unable to find a qualified candidate to serve at this time. Bruce Adams stated that if the board was unable to find an available WWAB Minutes 27 July 2015 Page 3 of 4  candidate, he can inform Mayor Tobin, who will assist in searching for a candidate. The board agreed to Mayor Tobin's assistance and Bruce Adams will discuss this with him. Motion to Adjourn at 5:55 p.m. by Todd Morris. Seconded by Sally Horak. UNANIMOUS At the conclusion of the meeting, Bruce Adams conducted a tour of the Wastewater Treatment Plant, providing the opportunity for the board to view the current upgrades. Ward 1 Alderman, Julie Bird, was present. Respectfully submitted by: City of Cortland WWTF WWAB Minutes 27 July 2015 Page 4 of 4