Wastewater Treatment Board

CITY OF CORTLAND WASTEWATER TREATMENT FACILITY Meeting Minutes Members: Da te : 1/ 25 /16 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 – Present Commissioner Todd Morris – Present Commissioner Diann Potter – Present Village of McGraw Mayor Allan Stauber – Absent Bruce Adams, Supt. of Wastewater – Present Meeting called to order at 5:29 p.m. Minutes from December 21, 2015, meeting for approval. Motion to approve the minutes from December 21, 2015, meeting by Bill Starr. Seconded by Diann Potter. UNANIMOUS Plant Manager’s Report: Plant Managers Report for January 25, 2016 (as written by Supt. Adams) Administration– A warm welcome to our newest and returning board member, Diann Potter. After two rounds of interviews, we have elected to hire Kevin Bradshaw as our newest Operator Trainee. Mr. Bradshaw has excellent qualifications and came with the highest of recommendations from his previous employer. You will have seen my plan for personnel changes during the coming year. I believe these changes will prepare the department well for the future in terms of developing the next generation of leadership. Barring perverse fate, that will be a long time coming, but we have a young staff and it's important to start the development process now. Cedarwood is working hard on securing the $2,000,000 NYSERDA digester grant. The deadline was extended two months, so we don't anticipate that we will not be successful. Operations- Effluent quality has improved dramatically in the last few weeks. Additionally, we are getting much better phosphorus removal. We have been out of compliance on phosphorus for three months now. This was finally traced down to a faulty chemical metering pump that was providing erratic feed of the PAC. It will take a while to get back into compliance because it's a 12-month rolling total. Maintenance- On January 14 we found the secondary digester gas holding dome had overridden three of the five stops and twisted the guide structure. This caused the dome to rise at a cocked angle, causing some damage to the bottom of the dome on the East side and partially break the mount of a lower guide roller bracket. Staff from Cedarwood helped us get the dome lowered back down onto its corbels. We are currently soliciting three quotes for repairs. The most likely cause for the dome failure was a poorly performing pressure/vacuum relief valve. We will be replacing most of the internals of that unit. Once the dome is replaced with a gas bladder, the PRV will be replaced with a rupture disk. The PRV units on the fixed-cover digesters will be replaced with dual PVRs, insulated and heat-traced to prevent freezing. WWAB Minutes 25 January 2016 Page 2 of 4  We did not get proper alarms for the dome event. This is mostly the result of not having analog values exported to the alarm program. We have stressed the need for this functionality to Cedarwood and Sanitaire. Sanitaire will install an upgraded version of the SCADA software to get us that functionality on their next site visit. In addition to the alarm situation, we are working up a punch list of SCADA-related items we want Sanitaire to address. These are things which we notice as situations reveal them but which are important to smooth operations. Bruce Adams Superintendent of Wastewater Bill Starr had asked Bruce Adams if Byrne's byproducts (whey) waste were what we had anticipated. Bruce stated that this was not really what we were anticipating, as we expected 15,000 to 30,000 gallons of waste from Skin Acid Whey. He further reported that the greek yoghurt manufacturing has hit a plateau as the yoghurt industry is moving away from strictly skim. They are now developing both fat free, 2% and full fat yoghurts which makes it more difficult to treat whey. Also, in order for Byrne to utilize their space, they are producing sour cream and cottage cheese, which produces DAF (dissolved air floatation) waste. Bruce explained to the board the process of DAF waste, which is created by injecting very high air pressure into water and then releasing it into an air floatation tank. The air that comes out is a solution of very tiny bubbles that attaches to the fat and floats it to the surface where you can separate it. Bruce further states that we intend to treat this when we build our new digester. Bruce also noted that DAF waste produces much more gas than whey by itself. Cedarwood has done calculations and discussed this with the digester manufacturer and as long as the mixture is adequate with adequate detention time, there should be no problem digesting that waste here. Bruce then reported that as part of the facility upgrade and what was originally in the plans, we were going from gas chlorine and gas sulfur dioxide to UV; however, this is no longer in the cards at this time. What was originally in the facility plan was sodium hypochlorite. Bruce further reported that we were approached with the possibility of on-site chlorine generation, so instead of having high strength bleach delivered, we would have salt delivered. The salt has an electrolytic process that generates chlorine. Bruce further stated that this has a higher capital cost, but a much lower chemical cost due to using the salt. Motion to approve the Plant Manager’s Report by Todd Morris. Seconded by Diann Potter. UNANIMOUS Finance: Financial statements and abstracts dated 12/31/15, and 1/16/16, were submitted for approval. Motion to approve financial statements and abstracts by Bill Starr. Seconded by Todd Morris. UNANIMOUS WWAB Minutes 25 January 2016 Page 3 of 4 Sewer Grievance: A sewer grievance application was received from Joan Essex on 1/12/16, for property located at 147 Tompkins Street, City of Cortland. Ms. Essex reported that in mid December she received a notice from the Water Department advising her of a high water usage at the property. She then contacted her property manager who discovered a running toilet on the 2nd floor of the apartment. The property manager repaired/replaced the flapper and fill valve to the toilet that same day, 12/22/15. The board reviewed the grievance submitted by Ms. Essex. Bill Starr made a request to obtain a history of previous billings to look at the quarterly rate charges for comparison based on occupancy of the residence. A motion was then made by Bill Starr to table the grievance until the next WWAB meeting in order to obtain a billing history from the Water Department. Margie Becker will obtain the requested information from the Water Department. Motion to table the grievance until the next WWAB meeting by Bill Starr. Seconded by Todd Morris. UNANIMOUS 2016 Nominations for Appointment of Board Chairman and Vice Chairman: As required under the charter, a Chairman and Vice Chairman must be nominated each January. A nomination was made by Bill Starr for John Troy as Chair, seconded by Todd Morris. John Troy nominated Bill Starr for Vice Chair, seconded by Diann Potter. UNANIMOUS New Business: No new business Old Business: No old business Motion to Adjourn at 5:59 p.m. by Todd Morris. Seconded by Diann Potter. UNANIMOUS Respectfully submitted by: City of Cortland WWTF WWAB Minutes 25 January 2016 Page 4 of 4