Wastewater Treatment Board

CITY OF CORTLAND WASTEWATER TREATMENT FACILITY Meeting Minutes Members: Da te : 11 /2 3/1 5 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 5:27 p.m. Minutes from October 26, 2015, meeting for approval. Motion to approve the minutes from October 26, 2015, meeting by Sally Horak. Seconded by Todd Morris. UNANIMOUS Plant Manager’s Report: Plant Managers Report for November 23, 2015 (as written by Supt. Adams) Administration– Common Council has approved the creation of the position of Instrumentation Technician. I have appointed Phil Opera into the position. Council also approved promoting an Operator I to Operator II and hiring a new employee as an Operator I/Operator Trainee. Common Council approved the City's application for $2,000,000 in NYSERDA grant funding towards the new anaerobic digester and generating equipment. I am told our WQIP application for $900,000 towards UV disinfection equipment will not be successful in this round. Therefore we will need to install the hypochlorite and thiosulfate-based disinfection system that is in the Facility Plan. I still plan to eventually have UV disinfection because it's the right way to go, but it will now be several years before that becomes a reality. On 11/16 the DEC conducted its annual inspection of the facility. I will forward the report to the Board once we receive it. Operations– We have been experiencing settleability issues associated with filamentous bacteria. This was caused by a combination of an unfavorable food/mass ratio and the inadvertent introduction of very old sludge. Operator of Record Ed Poole has been working with Cedarwood Engineering to correct the situation and we are seeing it move in the right direction. The new process was started on October 19th. Process issues and equipment difficulties are normal experiences during start-ups and we are dealing with them and learning from them as they come up. Maintenance– Due to the process issues described above, we postponed the planned main transformer inspection and servicing scheduled for 11/21. The MCC buckets repurposed to the new wasting pumps have been failing. This contributed to the F/M ratio issues described above. In order to assure proper control of the process, we replaced the active components of all of the affected buckets. WWAB Minutes 23 November 2015 Page 2 of 4  A failed gas control valve for Boiler 3 was replaced. Bruce Adams Superintendent of Wastewater Motion to approve the Plant Manager’s Report by Todd Morris. Seconded by Sally Horak. UNANIMOUS Finance: Financial statements and abstracts dated 10/30/15, and 11/15/15, were submitted for approval. Motion to approve financial statements and abstracts by Sally Horak. Seconded by Todd Morris. UNANIMOUS Sewer Grievance: Martin Shimer, Ivan PLLC, submitted a sewer grievance application on 9/18/15, for property located at 206 Main Street, City of Cortland. Mr. Shimer had reported that a leak was detected on 6/9/15, to an outside wall and repaired on 6/10/15. He also stated that the water never went through the sewer system. Mr. Shimer was requesting review of the 4th quarter of 2014, 1st and 2nd quarter of 2015. The board had reviewed Mr. Shimer's grievance application and it was decided to table the grievance until the next WWAB meeting on Monday, November 23, 2015. The board requested that additional information be obtained from Mr. Shimer to clarify his grievance. Sally Horak made a request for a more detailed description of what was broken, repaired and which apartment or business was affected. There were two quarterly billing account statements that were submitted for the property requiring clarification by the board. Sally Horak made a motion to table the grievance. The additional information was received by Margie Becker on 11/12/15, in which Mr. Shimer reported that he had mistakenly sent the wrong account on the grievance. He is submitting a grievance on Apartment B, at 206 Main Street, City of Cortland. Mr. Shimer stated that a repair was made to a toilet that was leaking. He is requesting relief towards the sewer portion of his billing. Mr. Shimer's additional information on his grievance was reviewed by the board. John Troy stated that the possible maximum allowable credit would be $231.00. John further stated that the 4th quarter of 2014 was not taken into consideration as this was past the allowable time period for review of applications. A motion was made by Sally Horak to approve the credit. Motion to approve a credit of $231.00, by Sally Horak. Seconded by Todd Morris. UNANIMOUS New Business: No new business WWAB Minutes 23 November 2015 Page 3 of 4 Old Business: No old business Per John Troy's request, a schedule for the 2016 WWAB meetings will be included in December's WWAB meeting materials. Motion to Adjourn at 6:41 p.m. by Todd Morris. Seconded by Sally Horak. UNANIMOUS Respectfully submitted by: City of Cortland WWTF WWAB Minutes 23 November 2015 Page 4 of 4