MINUTES OF MEETING

CORAL SPRINGS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT

 

            A regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors of the Coral Springs Improvement District was held on Monday, September 20, 2010 at 3:00 p.m. at the District Office, 10300 NW 11th Manor, Coral Springs, Florida. 

 

            Present and constituting a quorum were:

           

            Robert Fennell                                       President

            Sharon Zich                                          Vice President

            Glenn Hanks                                         Secretary

           

            Also present were:

           

            Kenneth Cassel                                     District Manager

            Dennis Lyles                                         District Counsel

            Dan Daly                                              Director of Operations

            Randy Frederick                                    Drainage Supervisor

            Kay Woodward                                     District Accountant                  

            Jan Zilmer                                             Human Resources

            David Macintosh                                   Wastewater Department

            Ed Stover                                              Water Department

            Gerrit Bulman                                       CH2M Hill                               

            Cory Johnson                                        CH2M Hill

            Walt Schwarz                                       CH2M Hill

            Jose Rivero                                           Resident

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS                     Roll Call

            Mr. Cassel called the meeting to order and called the roll. 

                                                                                                                       

THIRD ORDER OF BUSINESS                   Approval of the Minutes of the August 16, 2010 Meeting

            Mr. Fennell stated each Board member received a copy of the minutes of the August 16, 2010 meeting and requested any corrections, additions or deletions.

            Mr. Hanks stated I just want to clarify with regards to the $429; that was $429 because that was based on what we could demonstrate.  That is the one we have the documentation for the 660 cubic yards.

            Mr. Cassel stated yes.  If you back into the number with what they paid, it would have made it roughly $429 per cubic yard.

            Mr. Hanks stated and $30 to $32 is a more expected figure per cubic yard.

            Mr. Cassel stated yes.

                       

On MOTION by Ms. Zich seconded by Mr. Hanks with all in favor the minutes of the August 16, 2010 meeting were approved as clarified.

 

THIRD ORDER OF BUSINESS                  Supervisors’ Requests and Audience Comments

            Mr. Fennell stated I believe we have someone in the audience.

            Mr. Cassel stated I believe Mr. Rivero is here.

            Mr. Rivero stated yes I am.

            Mr. Cassel stated he wishes to address the Board regarding the letters and our position on removing the dock that he has placed in the rear area of his house, which is actually on the District’s property.

            Mr. Rivero stated I live at 382 NW 112 Avenue.  It would be my pleasure to allow these distinguished people to proceed ahead of me and I will wait until the end if that is alright with all of you.

            Mr. Fennell stated most of these people are hardworking staff.

            Mr. Rivero stated well I am here begging and groveling so I would rather not have any witnesses. 

            Mr. Cassel stated they are going to be here until the end of the meeting anyway.

            Mr. Rivero stated well as you all indicated I got very zealous and built a dock.  I understand it is not on my property and is on your property.  I have drawings to show what was built is small, but built well with engineer drawings which are stamped.  Is there anyway I can rent property from the Board, purchase the property or donate the dock?  Is there anyway at all we can supply some kind of accommodation?  The dock is only being used by the kids on my baseball team, my two sons and me.  We go out there, we fish and we canoe.  It does not have any commercial purpose.  I would just like to find a way to keep it.  If you want a hold harmless agreement or any kind of indemnification document, if you want me to give it to you in a bill of sale, whatever is appropriate, I will be happy to do it all at my expense. 

            Mr. Daly stated I received a call from the city’s code enforcement who stated this dock existed and they never permitted it.  I told them we did not either.  They told me it was against the rules and we needed to get rid of it.  This is why we wrote a letter to Mr. Rivero.  I wish all of our residents were as nice as he is.  The fact is this prompted us to write about 30 other letters to which 20 have already taken down their docks.  The one that prompted this whole action is the one still on the table. 

            Mr. Rivero stated maybe I can modify it so it no longer overhangs on the water.

            Mr. Hanks stated part of what we are up against as a drainage District is the Federal EPA and the State Department of Environmental Protection who are breathing down our necks with new water quality standards.  They are establishing different water quality standards across the state for waters that are for recreational use, waters that are for drainage use and waters which are natural.  Right now our system is not designed to meet the water quality requirements which are associated with recreational use.  If we start allowing docks in these areas, we can be faced as a District with serious costs to improve the drainage system to improve the water quality. 

            Mr. Rivero asked may I ask some questions?

            Mr. Hanks responded yes. 

            Mr. Rivero stated this Board is responsible for the maintenance and care of the drainage ways.  Is this correct?

            Mr. Hanks responded yes. 

            Mr. Rivero stated and also the lakes which are considered recreational.  Is that correct?

            Mr. Fennell responded no.

            Ms. Zich stated there are no recreational lakes in our District.

            Mr. Rivero asked what about on the other side of Atlantic Boulevard?  That is a private lake, but I have seen your vehicles and your staff in there.

            Mr. Fennell stated only on contract to them.

            Mr. Rivero stated so you are maintaining both.

            Mr. Fennell stated but only because of an agreement we made.

            Mr. Cassel stated we treat the water for water quality parameters.

            Mr. Fennell stated otherwise they do it and we do not trust them to do it.  If there is anything there which should be removed, I would like to see it removed too.  We actually had meetings in the past where we discussed it, but were unable to take that affect.  Besides the policy we always had, there are some other policies too.  The one that always worries me is we did a drainage study three years ago of the canals.  We started looking at what happens if we have obstructions.  We got some severe thinking that had to occur.  When this area was first built there were no trees around and there were no docks up.  It was basically all bare area and the canals were fine.  They were what they were designed for.  One feeds into another.  Now we have a terrific problem where it is not only docks, but also trees.  If any of those go and block even 25% of the flow through the canals during a high water period, we can have a flooding problem.  That is what my fear is.  My personal opinion is we should not have anything in them; trees or anything on our property which could possibly give us problems by blocking water flow.  The other question that comes about is who actually owns the canals.  It turns out that every person in our District pays the same amount for the canals.  That is the other thing which is probably not understood.  I do not live on a canal.  He does.

            Ms. Zich stated I do not.

            Mr. Fennell stated but I pay the same amount as you for the canal.  What it is really there for is so the drainage occurs.  Frankly, we live in a big bowl.  This big bowl without the canals and without the pumps we have would flood.  Our primary goal is to see this as a flood control area as opposed to a recreational area.

            Mr. Rivero stated I am very sensitive to that sir.  As a matter of fact Mr. Daly knows whenever his staff visits my property I assist them in removing debris almost on a weekly basis out of those lakes over there.  I had six coconut trees on my property and they explained to me what kind of a nuisance it became when the coconuts started to clog these different things.  I had them removed.  I am still picking up my neighbors’ debris which floats from one side of the lake to the other, depending on which way the wind blows.  I am sensitive to where you are coming from.  I do not see this as being an issue.  It really is not.  Look at the plans.  That dock would withstand a category four hurricane.  It is so overbuilt it is ridiculous.  I am willing to donate it to you.  I paid almost $8,000 for it and it is yours; just let my son fish off of it every once and a while. 

            Mr. Fennell stated I myself do not see changing the policy. 

            Ms. Zich stated unfortunately I do not think we can change the policy.  Mr. Hanks?

            Mr. Hanks responded considering how much potential impact we have and how much potential cost exposure we have for future compliance with the environmental regulations I am a bit concerned.  I am looking at the date of this engineer drawing and it appears Mr. Bushouse came in afterwards.

            Mr. Rivero stated I had it built with the help of a person who built my docks in Indian Creek.  I own a couple of marina slips off of Carriage House.  We recently did some work out there and we are continuing to do some work.  I had them come out and help me with this project.  No, I did not pull a permit and no, I did not anticipate needing prerequisite plans so they came after the fact.  I welcome all of you to go out there.  I even built it with plastic board.  There would be no issue of rotting, no painting and no eyesore.  I am sure you all have pictures of it.  I saw several of your employees looking at it.  I asked them if they could think of any reason this would be any detriment to them and their ability to conduct their ordinary business or any future issue which could come up.  They said no.

            Mr. Hanks asked Mr. Daly, where is this?  I am trying to get a better picture of this.  Do you have that aerial again?

            Mr. Daly responded I can get it.  What is your address sir?

            Mr. Rivero responded 382 NW 112 Avenue.

            Mr. Hanks asked counsel, what does this open us up to or what is our position?

            Mr. Lyles asked going forward or going backwards?

            Mr. Hanks responded I want to hear both.

            Mr. Lyles stated let us start with backwards.  You had many people attempt to get permission before and after the fact to have dock structures; either to build them or have them remain in place.  The Boards which have preceded you that I am familiar with have uniformly said no for the basic reasons you announced today.  You have required people to have those structures removed.  Going forward, if you do allow one, you are going to lose the ability to say no to others.  When people come in saying they want to keep the one they have or build a new one you have to treat all property owners equally.  I am assuming everybody is straightforward and people would like to have a dock if they can; as long as it is built to recognized engineering standards and they take the position it does not do any harm.  The District has uniformly for decades said no to these.  The one you are referring to is on a privately owned lake, which the District does not own or have jurisdiction over.  We have a contract, because the waters flow back and forth, to do some chemical lake maintenance and treatment.  We do not have any say over the issues of the docks in there because it is privately owned.  That is the only place you are going to see a dock which is allowed to remain in place throughout CSID. 

            Mr. Rivero asked may I address you?

            Mr. Lyles responded I am just answering the questions from a Board member.  You have to address them and not me. 

            Mr. Rivero stated I understand what happened in the past may not necessarily affect what happens in the future.  If you distinguish a certain standard that it has to be a dock which is certified and engineered to a certain level, why would you not allow someone to use it?  I do not think the water chemical issue is pertinent.  There is no difference between the District’s lake and the private lake.  People are just using them.  People are out there fishing.  My children swim in it.  We all play in it.  We horse around.  We have canoes.  We tip each other over.  Like I said, I coach baseball and football.  I have all the kids out there all of the time.  We are barbequing and enjoying it.  Is this not what this Board is for; to improve the quality of life of its members and constituents?

            Mr. Hanks responded it is really to manage the water and sewer as well as the drainage facilities of this component.  I do not think we are charged with recreational activities. 

            Mr. Fennell stated I believe the consensus of the Board is we are not going to be able to help you out. 

            Mr. Rivero stated I understand. 

            Mr. Fennell stated thank you for coming in.

            Mr. Rivero asked may I ask a question?  If I remove everything that is on the waters edge and goes over to the whole of the water, can I keep the deck?

            Mr. Fennell responded I believe you have to remove anything that is on the District’s property.

            Mr. Daly stated anything that is permanent.  He can place something out there for use for an afternoon and then bring it back to his property.

            Mr. Fennell stated this is as much time as we can allot you today.  Thank you very much for coming in.

            Mr. Rivero stated I appreciate the Board’s time.  Thank you.

            Mr. Fennell asked are there any other comments?  I will just make one.  I was out for breakfast this morning at the Original Pancake House and it turns out Mr. Brook sits there every Monday morning at 8:30 a.m.  I introduced myself and mentioned we need to be fostering a water management policy to our group.  We should be looking at something that not only has to do with CSID, but with the city, with NSID and others.  He said he would mention it at one of his meetings.  He is going to be gone in November.  He is being termed out and he will be running for Representative.

           

FOURTH ORDER OF BUSINESS              Consideration of Subcontract Agreement with Xenco Laboratory Services    

            Mr. Hanks stated tell me a little bit about this.  Is this for our water testing?

            M. Cassel responded water and wastewater testing.

            Mr. Hanks asked whatever happened to Spectrum Labs?

            Mr. Cassel responded they are still available.  They are still here.  We were using Spectrum.  We started doing a test cycle with this particular laboratory.  Their prices for lab testing are less.  They pick up where we used to have to deliver to Spectrum.  They do the test for less expenditure to the District.  The tests are coming back in perfect parameters.  They are doing a good job.

            Mr. Hanks asked have we done side by side samples?

            Mr. Cassel responded yes. 

            Mr. Daly stated we are doing that with water next week actually.

            Mr. Hanks asked are the results compatible or consistent?

            Mr. Cassel responded yes. 

            Mr. Fennell asked is there any kind of environmental or DEP requirement we have for the laboratories we test at?

            Mr. Macintosh responded yes.  They are certified.   

            Mr. Fennell stated so DEP is going to believe us.

            Mr. Macintosh responded yes.

            Mr. Cassel stated we have been operating with Spectrum Labs without a contract.  Part of what we have been working on with Mr. Daly, Ms. Woodward, Mr. Macintosh and Mr. Stover is as we are going through various vendors we are trying to make sure we have some kind of a contractual arrangement with them on record so we know what their performance should be and they know what to expect from us so we formalize what has gone on in the past.  We sent this to the attorney.  I do not know if the one in the agenda package is the latest, but I do have the latest which was revised by Mr. Lyles’ office. 

            Mr. Fennell asked how long with this contract be good for?

            Mr. Lyles responded it has a 30 day cancellation provision and each task they will perform will be subject to an individual task order from the owner.  It does not have a total cost provision because each subset of tasks will have a direction from the staff to proceed to do the following scope.  The cost will be in there.  I believe staff is satisfied that their fees are reasonable and they like this flexibility to be able to give them piece by piece what they want them to do. 

            Mr. Hanks asked is this one of the services which falls under competitive bidding?

            Mr. Lyles responded it is not. 

            Mr. Fennell asked about how much do we spend per year?

            Mr. Cassel asked Ms. Woodward, do we have a rough idea on what we spend per year on testing?

            Mr. Daly responded it is in the financials.

            Mr. Cassel stated part of our charge to Mr. Stover and Mr. Macintosh is to periodically look at all of their contracts and see if they are getting the proper level of service from the vendor as well as whether the vendor’s price is within range. 

            Mr. Lyles stated I understand the President would like to have this brought back after a year with a status report on an agenda.

            Mr. Cassel stated we can do that. 

            Mr. Lyles stated it is an unusual form of an agreement for this District because of the unusual nature of the work.  We modified the proposed agreement from the contractor in several fairly significant ways.  We made sure it recognizes both the need to comply with the public records law and at the same time certain elements of our plan operations are confidential and not public under the public records law.  We did look at it carefully. 

            Mr. Hanks asked are you comfortable with it?

            Mr. Lyles responded I am comfortable with it; especially with revisiting it in one year. 

           

On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded by Ms. Zich with all in favor the master agreement with Xenco Laboratories for laboratory services was approved.  

           

            Mr. Daly stated it will be good to see next year where we come in because the budget this year was $91,500.  I know the water aspect of the testing, which is not as frequent, is also not as much savings as Mr. Macintosh has on the wastewater side. 

            Mr. Fennell stated I know we used to have our own water testing facility and we did away with it as a cost reduction.  Is it still true?

            Mr. Daly responded it is really hard to say.  Employment is expensive.  All of the benefits are expensive.  Equipment is expensive, which always needs to be upgraded.  I would imagine we would leave it to the masters out there and utilize their services.

 

FIFTH ORDER OF BUSINESS                   Consideration of Second Amendment to Interlocal Agreement with SWCD

            Mr. Daly stated the SWCD Board has decided they would like the human resources portion of our services to be taken in-house by Wrathell, Hart, Hunt & Associates.  We reduced the amount of money we receive every year by $4,800. 

            Mr. Hanks asked does everything else stay the same?

            Mr. Daly responded yes.

 

On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded by Ms. Zich with all in favor the second amendment to the interlocal agreement between CSID and SWCD was approved. 

 

SIXTH ORDER OF BUSINESS                   Staff Reports

            A.        Manager

·         Resident Correspondence

            Mr. Cassel stated we were contacted last week from a Mr. Porth’s office.

            Mr. Daly stated a gentleman from Mr. Porth’s office called.  He wanted to know when our Board of Supervisor election is and how many people sat on the Board.  He is our Representative.  Is that correct?

            Mr. Lyles responded he is our State Representative. 

            Mr. Daly stated I thought it was interesting that he was interested in our little District.  Was it Mr. Porth we spoke to one time, Mr. Fennell?

            Mr. Fennell responded he called one time during the hurricane.  I would like to have our counsel contact them and ask because we did have a piece of legislation that once went through and got cancelled by Governor Crist.  It may be along those kinds of lines where we looked for a number of revisions to our status.  NSID got through, but we did not.  This was when we were talking about the ability to do a lot of different things.

            Mr. Lyles stated not the least of which is the schedule thresholds for purchasing being modernized so it is not capped at $4,000 for most maintenance service and construction contracts.

            Mr. Fennell stated and it would essentially turn us over into a Board where, at our discretion, we could go for general elections.  There were some other provisions.  Given that interest or at least we think that, let us send him a copy of it again to see if he would be interested in pushing it one more time.

            Mr. Lyles stated the deadline for filing a bill with the legislation delegation, if you wanted to do it this upcoming session, is in the next several weeks.  My suggestion is to find out what is behind his request and engage what you want to do in response to that once we have more information; if he wants to discuss it, he has no obligation to.  We can certainly make an inquiry. 

            Mr. Fennell stated I think we should. 

            Mr. Lyles stated I also believe he has a piece of NSID in his District.  He has two different ways of doing things right now with the two districts.  We have not had any inquiries or heard about anything like this so I cannot shed any light on it.  We can politely open the subject on your behalf.  We will make sure he knows any kind of information he wants he can have and it will be easy.  We will do that and I will get back to you with what he has to say.

            Mr. Daly stated Mr. Hanks asked last month that we contacted some of our residents who have an irrigation meter showing zero consumption.  We wrote them a letter telling them we had their deposit and if they were not using their irrigation meter, they could let us know.  We will take the irrigation meter out and give them their deposit out.  It works out great because we do not know if their irrigation meter is broken.  We cannot test it.  Rather than go out there and change every irrigation meter, possibly in vain, we sent out 150 letters.  We received about six responses.  Mr. Fennell has a mock up of the first draft of a newsletter in his hand, which we will work on.  It also includes the article about the election which will take place in June.  We would love to hear any comments before we put it out, which will probably be in November or January.

            Mr. Fennell stated if you take the fact we meet a couple of hours a month and you multiply it by 12 that is 24 hours.  What would a term limit actually require?  How many days of service?  The problem with this job is it probably takes two or three years as a Board member to appreciate what is going on.

            Ms. Zich stated yes.  I can verify it takes at least a year to feel comfortable.

            Mr. Fennell stated it would be a disaster for a Board of this kind to have somebody coming through new every year who is not knowledgeable at all about the situation. 

            Mr. Cassel stated we appreciate the stability.

            Mr. Fennell stated it looks like there is a training course now for people might be interested in learning more about special districts. 

            Ms. Zich stated there are so many directions everything goes in on the Board that you would have to have a lot of training.

            Mr. Cassel stated the other item under resident correspondence was in your agenda package under Tab A.  It is a letter from Ms. Woliner thanking staff for work which was done at her house and for them being professional, courteous and efficient in their use of time and how they dealt with her. 

 

·         Discussion of FEMA Project Closeout

            Mr. Cassel stated if you remember at the last meeting we discussed FEMA had determined they overpaid the District. 

            Mr. Fennell asked how can you determine anything from this?

            Mr. Cassel responded it included their closeout procedures and best practices as well as the review of the worksheets and their determination that they overpaid the District $129,425.  They basically would like us to cut them a check.

            Mr. Fennell asked did you find out where the money actually went and who got it?

            Mr. Cassel responded it was for payments to Intrastate Construction and Lanzo for debris removal.  Those were the invoices we had.  The bottom line is we could not prove where the actual debris ended up.  Since we cannot produce what they call the “cradle to grave” of the debris, they will not pay you for it; even though they already paid you they want their money back. 

            Ms. Zich stated and we already paid Lanzo and Intrastate Construction.

            Mr. Cassel stated we already paid them three or four years ago.

            Ms. Zich asked do we get it back from them?

            Mr. Daly responded no.  It was approved.  They submitted invoices to a representative of the District.  It was approved to be submitted for payment by FEMA.  Four and a half years later FEMA decides to do an audit and now is saying they are missing a piece of paper saying where the debris went. 

            Mr. Fennell asked have you written a letter to Lanzo and Intrastate Construction asking them where the debris went?

            Mr. Daly responded yes.  We have met with them.

            Mr. Fennell asked was there an official letter sent to them asking them to provide the information?

            Ms. Zich asked they have to provide us with copies of their invoices, is that right?

            Mr. Daly responded it is not the invoices, but where the material went. 

            Mr. Cassel stated it is dump tickets, truck tickets and things like it, which technically they are not required as the contractor to maintain those documents for longer than a year. 

            Mr. Fennell asked have you actually sent them a letter asking them for it?

            Mr. Cassel responded emails and phone calls.

            Mr. Fennell stated but a letter?

            Mr. Daly responded they will answer us no in the letter.

            Mr. Fennell stated I think we should send them a letter and copy FEMA to show them what we are doing.

            Mr. Daly stated FEMA has been involved in this. Ms. Woodward, Mr. Cassel and I have probably had a half a dozen meetings with these people.  We have been hammering at the injustice and the fact this is taxpayers money which paid for the original cleanup and now it is coming back out of taxpayers money once again.  Basically they are paying twice.  It is incredible, but our efforts have been to no avail. 

            Mr. Hanks stated I am a little bit frustrated that we do not know where a pile of debris, 25 feet high by 50 feet by 30 feet, ended up.  It is just missing. 

            Mr. Daly stated that is actually FEMA’s problem.  Unless they can see where it was deposited, they think it ended up in the Everglades.  This is why they refuse to pay anything.  Back then there were a lot of haulers who would take the money and run.

            Mr. Hanks stated it is also our problem because we do not know where it is.  We do not know where it ended up.  It does not look like there was any separation between what was happening in the plant.  I understand why we ended up in this situation.  We needed to get things moved and operational.  Some of that may have been Intrastate moving the same piece of branch twice because they realized they put it in front of the clarifiers and they needed to move it behind the filter.

            Mr. Fennell asked does FEMA have proof we put it out there?

            Mr. Daly responded they do not need proof.  Our invoices were signed off by a representative of CSID.  It said these man hours and these pieces of equipment were used, now pay me.  It is $150,000 worth for debris removal.  The physical labor and equipment used for it all got paid for to the two entities mentioned earlier; Lanzo and Intrastate Construction.  It was all signed off and when this was submitted to FEMA we received our check.  Now when they do an audit more than four years later they find some of the documentation is missing.

            Mr. Hanks stated FEMA was a small component of the overall cleanup.  Where are we with regard to NRCS?

            Mr. Cassel responded they have not done their audit yet. 

            Mr. Daly stated they are auditing three projects.

            Ms. Woodward stated they are supposed to do a walkthrough or physical inspection. 

            Mr. Hanks stated so there are potential questions from them as well. 

            Ms. Woodward stated they are not actually doing an audit of the paper trail.  They are going through the total payments they sent you on all of the work for that particular hurricane and they are going to identify three specific projects which were paid on.  They will ask someone from the District to give them a physical walkthrough to show them.  If the project said a roof was repaired, they want to see it looks like a roof was repaired. 

            Mr. Daly stated that is FEMA.

            Ms. Woodward stated I thought that was NRCS.

            Mr. Daly stated NRCS is all wet.  It is canals.

            Ms. Woodward stated but NRCS is only going to go through the projects.

            Mr. Hanks stated so NRCS is doing some spot checking.

            Mr. Cassel stated yes.

            Mr. Hanks stated at this point I think we are trying to hunt for something which does not exist. 

            Mr. Cassel stated I think we have tried to turn over every rock, pebble and stone where we could figure out where it might have gone or who might have taken it away.  We even went to Arbor Tree to see if they removed the material and did not get paid for it.  We went through every angle we could to see if we could find debris which came out of our property.  We came up blank.

            Mr. Hanks stated I do not want you wasting your time focusing on something which is not going to yield any results.  We are going to have another hurricane at some point.  What can we do to tighten up our procedures so we are not in a situation where we have had sign-offs on $140,000 worth and not be able to document where it went?

            Mr. Cassel responded there are several things which have already been put in place.  Mr. Daly and I have established more of an area of responsibility.  I worked through Hurricane Andrew.  I know what needs to go to FEMA.  I will be reviewing the documents before they go out the door to FEMA or NCRS to make sure we complied.  We picked up a set of the 44 CFR which cover this.  We are going to go through them page by page and find the documentation to make sure we comply 100% with it before it goes out; regardless of whether we hire someone to handle the paperwork, we are going to double check internally to make sure whoever is putting the paperwork together is in fact correct up front so we do not have this repercussion. 

            Mr. Fennell asked are they claiming $140,000 worth of work was not done?

            Mr. Daly responded they cannot prove it was. 

            Ms. Woodward stated it is not a question of whether the work was done.  They are saying if we cannot document the debris ended up in an approved facility for accepting the debris, then we just allow 100% of all cost incurred to accumulate the debris.  They do not deny that the debris existed and we accumulated it.  If you cannot prove it went to an approved site, all costs are not reimbursable.

            Mr. Cassel stated they will not reimburse you. 

            Mr. Hanks stated when we were going through the hurricane cleanup we knew going into it that reimbursement was not certain.  We went into it knowing it needed to be taken care of and the Federal Government might be in a position to reimburse up to $.75 on the $1.00 or some threshold of that magnitude.  There was no guarantee everything we submitted was going to be reimbursed.  This is one of those where it did not pass muster, let us move on.  It obviously did not stick to the wall, let us move on.

            Mr. Cassel stated our setup for the future if there is another event is to try to make sure that if they do reimburse, the documentation required is there.  They may change the amount they reimburse or decide they cannot.  If they do reimburse, we will make sure everything is documented properly. 

            Mr. Hanks asked counsel; do you have any input on this?

            Mr. Lyles responded more important than staff’s awareness of how particular, how almost counterintuitive and how unfair FEMA’s position on some of these reimbursement audits may be, you recently approved an agreement with AshBritt for debris removal.  They are qualified substantial experts in not just the removal phase, but also the FEMA documentation phase.  If this were to happen on AshBritt’s watch, we would be looking to AshBritt for making us whole because of our contract.  In this instance we had a variety of haulers in a middle of a crisis.  We had to get rid of the debris in an emergency situation.  People were out there verifying the quantities.  They just were not set up in advance to do everything FEMA required.  AshBritt is.  You have an agreement in place if there is a hurricane event now which would make this problem unlikely to recur.

            Mr. Hanks stated it is not that AshBritt would be in a position of getting setup in advance.  We as a District need to be setup in advance as well.

            Mr. Fennell asked does it require the Board to approve refunding the money?

            Mr. Cassel responded yes.

 

 

 

 

 

On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded by Ms. Zich with Mr. Hanks and Ms. Zich voting aye and Mr. Fennell voting nay management was authorized to refund the FEMA reimbursement for costs related to Hurricane Wilma cleanup. 

 

            Mr. Lyles stated Mr. Daly mentioned it is like having to pay twice.  I think mathematically we paid once.  Then we got reimbursed so we did not pay anything.  Now we have to refund most of the money we got from FEMA.  We are only paying one dollar for the dollar worth of the debris cleanup.  We are not paying extra because this audit four years later has come to a difficult conclusion.  We are paying what we agreed to pay and we are not getting refunded by FEMA.  We are really not paying twice and I do not want the minutes to reflect we paid twice for one set of emergency debris removal.  We paid once and we are just not getting reimbursed for it. 

            Mr. Hanks stated we are thankful for the help we have gotten, or at least I am.

            Mr. Fennell stated I think the logic is flawed with what they are asking for.  They have linked some things which do not make any sense.

            Ms. Zich stated I do not think we have any choice. 

            Mr. Cassel stated this is why we requested a copy of 44 CFR; we know the process and procedures so if they are going to reimburse, we will have the best shot of making sure whatever we put in for does get reimbursed without them coming back later.

            Mr. Hanks asked if you cut the check and a week later all of this documentation appears, have we boxed ourselves out?  Is the case closed at that point?

            Mr. Cassel responded we have 90 days to appeal.

            Ms. Zich asked what are the chances it will appear.

            Ms. Woodward responded slim to zero. 

            Ms. Zich stated do not cut the check until it is absolutely necessary. 

            Ms. Woodward stated we are down the absolute necessary.  We have been working on this since last November. 

            Ms. Zich stated okay.  Cut the check.  I do not think we have a choice.

           

 

 

·         Proposed Meeting Schedule for Fiscal Year 2011

            Mr. Cassel stated the next item is the meeting schedule for fiscal year 2011.  Do you have any conflicts where you need us to change any dates?

            Ms. Zich responded I would like to change the May meeting to the fourth Monday in May; from May 16, 2011 to May 23, 2011. 

            Mr. Hanks stated I would like to change the October 18, 2010 meeting to October 25, 2011. 

 

On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded by Ms. Zich with all in favor the meeting schedule for fiscal year 2011 was approved as amended.

 

            Mr. Cassel stated before we go to the water and sewer charts there is a canal issue.  We had an inquiry.  An individual is complaining that the bank is eroding and her fence is caving in.  We did some investigation and a survey.  We discovered the District does not have any bank along four city blocks.

            Ms. Zich asked where are we looking at?  What section?

            Mr. Frederick responded West Glen.

            Mr. Cassel stated in our typical scenario we have 20 to 25 feet of District property between the individual’s property line and the top of the water.  On the lower side along this stretch of approximately four blocks when there property line goes to the waters edge.  I am not sure how this happened.  We are trying to investigate to figure out why.  The bottom line is we have an individual complaining about washout of her fence.

            Ms. Early stated I do not think it was uncommon back then from typical sections we have looked at in the past.  Even in SWCD a lot of the canals had the access on one side.  The canal was not built in the middle of the right-of-way.  On one side the edge of the water was a right-of-way line and along the other side was where they provided access to it since the canal is not that wide.  This way they would get equipment down on the north side so it is not uncommon.

            Mr. Fennell asked where does the canal legally go to?  How far can it go?

            Ms. Early asked what do you mean?

            Mr. Fennell responded there is the property right next to the canal.

            Mr. Lyles asked can the edge of the water go literally to the property line?

            Mr. Fennell responded or beyond it. 

            Mr. Lyles stated you cannot flood their property.  The canal which is engineered and constructed can go to the edge of our canal right-of-way.  We own the property and can put the canal where we think it should be as long as we do not interfere with an adjacent property owner’s use and enjoyment of their property. 

            Mr. Hanks stated I am going to focus on a key word you said Mr. Lyles.  We cannot construct a canal if it impinges on a right-of-way.  If a developer developed that parcel of land when they were building West Glen, when they were doing site improvements, and built it in that location, would it not change the equation if the people bought into that situation knowing the canal was built over onto their property?

            Mr. Lyles responded I think they are presumed to know where the canal is relative to their rear property line.  I think they may even be further presumed to understand the benefit of having the water there as opposed to a right-of-way for maintenance purposes that does not get maintained as nicely as their backyard probably does and they have somebody else’s problem on the other side.  It does not necessarily change the equation.  We are speculating here and I do not like to do that; especially on the record.  It is open and obvious.  It exists as a feature of the land by the government entity which owns the property at the rear.  As long as we are not doing anything negligent in our maintenance of our canal and in our use of it and we have not impinged on her use and enjoyment, then we continue to do what we have done all of these years, which is keep the water flowing.

            Mr. Hanks asked Ms. Early, can we have drawings for the canals on these sections?  I know we have looked at them.  Actually, I think this is one of the properties which came up before and you had cross sections.  Was it just for Eagle Trace that you had the cross sections?

            Ms. Early responded I do not know if this is one of the exact areas we looked at.

            Mr. Hanks stated I believe one of them was in West Glen.

            Ms. Early stated I think I gave you a copy of the prints.

            Mr. Frederick stated I know it was on the original list.

            Ms. Early stated they built that pool and there is a fence.  Mr. Frederick said the shrub line is on the outside of the fence.  That can be part of the problem too.

            Mr. Daly asked is the complaint that our canal is eroding their property or is our complaint that their property is falling into our canal?

            Mr. Frederick responded she is losing her property and her fence is falling into the canal.  She is saying when she first moved there she was able to go out the fence and mow the canal bank.  Now she cannot even walk out the fence. 

            Ms. Early asked how old is the swimming pool?

            Mr. Daly responded we actually had a professional survey done of this property.  Here it is. 

            Mr. Fennell asked is the canal in her property now?

            Ms. Early responded I think this is one of the questions we tried to get SFWMD to answer and they never responded.  In my community I do not own the lake.  If my property erodes, I have to fix it. 

            Mr. Cassel stated Mr. Hanks; you read these more than I do.  Is this showing the edge of water still outside their property line?

            Mr. Fennell responded there is this one particular case, but in reality you are telling me there are a couple of blocks of this.  Is that right?

            Mr. Daly responded when we went to look at it I looked at the neighbors’ properties.  The entire section was built that way.  What alarmed me is if we have any liability to this one individual lot, we have liability to four to seven blocks.  We need to identify if we have responsibility to do something to the bank.

            Mr. Cassel stated according to the survey we just had done by Brewer and Associates it looks like the edge of water is still outside the individual’s property line.  The edge of water has not encroached to the point of impacting their property line at this state. 

            Mr. Hanks stated I think we should go back and pull our previous research on related issues with the canal bank.  I do not remember enough about the conditions we had observed.  We had some divers out.

            Mr. Daly asked is this the Dunkelberger one?

            Mr. Cassel responded it was Dunkelberger and Canal Profiles.  We have all of that filed. 

            Mr. Hanks stated I want us to dust off some of that stuff and see what our conclusions were at that time before rendering a judgment on this.

            Mr. Cassel stated okay.  I just wanted to bring it up to the Board that it is out there and depending on the approach of our position, multiple blocks can be impacted. 

 

·         Monthly Water & Sewer Charts

            Mr. Fennell asked did we ever come to a conclusion on the intrusion problem?

            Mr. Cassel responded Mr. Schwarz is here.  We will get to that.  You will also notice we created a chart looking at the fact, as Mr. Hanks pointed out, of what is typically used for a plug number for hydrant flushing, maintenance, etcetera and etcetera.  You will notice in the last page of the chart where I had Mr. Stover deduct the 5% as a plug number for hydrant flushing, maintenance issues, pipe flushing, and etcetera.  It brings you down into an average for the year 2009 to 2011 of roughly 4% and an annual average of 9%.  I contacted one of my counterparts at Severn Trent Services who manages a number of facilities.  I cannot remember his exact numbers, but I believe they were up as high as utilizing a loss factor of close to 10% in some systems. 

            Mr. Fennell asked what is ours overall?

            Mr. Cassel responded the monthly average is 4.12% for 2010.  If you are using the 5% non-billed for plant flushing, hydrant leaks and etcetera, you are down at about 4%.  Without it you are at an average monthly percent of loss of 9.24%.

            Mr. Fennell asked do you really think the fire department is using 5% of the water per month?  I do not think so.

            Mr. Hanks responded if you take that 5% for flushing, plant irrigation and fire department use, I am not interested in the leaks part, I am going to take that out that is 190,000 gallons per day for those uses.  Is that realistic?

            Mr. Cassel responded it is a number which is out there in the industry from what I understand and a lot of systems utilize and acknowledge the potential which is out there.  Do we know how much we flush when we super chlorinate?

            Mr. Stover responded I have the report in my office.

            Mr. Cassel asked how many gallons when we flush?

            Mr. Stover responded I do not recall off hand, but it is not hard to get.  I have it on my computer.  Some of the cities around institute their own flushing programs.  They do not have the fire department do it.  They have their own flushing program on a monthly basis and 5% is usually the standard they use considering you are taking into effect leaks which may occur.  They also have irrigation meters they do not charge for or maybe irrigation meters which are not working.  Contractors in some of the new construction will tap into the water somewhere illegally.  They do account for it and that is the number which comes up, 5%. 

            Mr. Daly asked when did we do the chlorination?  Was it in July?

            Mr. Stover responded yes.  It was in July.  It was 14 days.

            Mr. Hanks stated I am just looking at it.  You talk about 5%.  That is over two hours of a fire department flushing a hydrant.

            Ms. Zich asked how often does the fire department flush the hydrants?

            Mr. Daly responded we should get them to tell us that.

            Ms. Zich stated I have a hydrant in my yard.  I have been there 31 years and I missed it whenever they did it.

            Mr. Fennell asked why would you do it?

            Mr. Cassel responded you exercise the fire hydrant to make sure you can get the caps off for the fire department as well as check if the fire hydrant opens, closes and seals properly.  In my past jobs we used to flush hydrants in the middle of the night.  We had a crew come in and flush from 10:00 p.m. or midnight until 6:00 a.m.  This way you have low consumption and if you do stir up sediment, there is time for the sediment to settle in the pipes prior to people waking up in the morning and getting cloudy water.  There are a number of reasons most fire hydrant flushing is done in the middle of the night.

            Mr. Fennell stated it is worth asking.  I have lived here for 30 years and other than a fire, I have not seen them turn on any hydrants. 

            Mr. Stover stated a few years ago they used to do it on Sundays.  They would call us Sunday in the morning to tell us they were going to be flushing, but they would never call us back and let us know when they were done flushing.  You can obviously see on the computer there is a big flow of water going out so you know why it is going out and we always knew when they stopped. 

            Mr. Hanks stated I think what we can draw from this is our lime losses are not as bad as we thought, but I also think they are not where we want to have them either. 

            Mr. Cassel stated I would potentially look at that, but I would also look at the fact we are trying to narrow down every number we have to make sure the numbers we are putting into our reports can be justified as the proper level we are at to make sure our reports do match; that we are looking at billed and non billed, the fact we are sending out the letters to people regarding their irrigation meters.  We do not know how many irrigation meters are out there which are broken.

            Mr. Daly stated we just did the 10 inch meter.

            Mr. Fennell stated I remember you were going to do it.

            Mr. Daly stated we replaced one of them immediately and the other is going to be kind of tough because it is six feet down.  We are going to have to do a lot of work.

            Mr. Hanks asked does it do any good to replace one and not the other?

            Mr. Daly responded yes because it gets it going on it.  I would hate to have two ten inch meters waiting around for them to decide when it is a good time to get going.  They can put one in and then we can do nothing, but zero in on getting the second one in. 

            Mr. Fennell asked how do you read a meter which is six feet down?  Do you have a remote sensor?

            Mr. Daly responded it is all remote.  They have to build it up a little bit.  It is where the Washington Mutual Bank went in.

            Mr. Cassel stated also in conjunction with that the mall will be putting in backflow preventers.  We are requiring them to do it.

           

·         Utility Billing Work Orders

            This item is for informational purposes only.

 

            B.        Attorney

            There being no report, the next item followed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            C.        Engineer

·         Monthly Aerial Photographs

·         Project Status Report

            Mr. Cassel asked may I suggest an update from Mr. Bulman on the wellhead investigation status report while we are waiting for the I&I presentation?

            Mr. Bulman responded essentially the modeling has been completed on the projection well pump station.  We determined what the main issue was with the pump station; why it is not getting as much water down the backup injection well, which is the older well, as it should.  We looked at the capacity of the pump station itself.  There is an engineering fix; however, we need to look at the bigger picture of regulatory compliance.  In this case we had discussion with DEP.  I have worked with Mr. Cassel and Mr. Macintosh to look at emergency disposal plans. 

            Right now DEP’s view is they understand the issue of capacity.  They would like to see a disposal plan of how we would do with the backup and what we would do with the outflow if the primary well, Injection Well #2, were offline for an extended period of time.  This typically happens during mechanical integrity testing when it is offline.  When it is offline the flow is diverted to the backup well and to the additional storage tanks as well as the lined and then the unlined ponds. 

            If you could not return the service in time, it would eventually overflow into the canal.  That is the situation.  DEP’s position remains that if this were to occur, there would be enforcement action.  I asked about if you have a situation with a legitimate problem such as a valve being stuck.  The county or the state can still pursue enforcement action.  They said we would not have to upgrade our pump station.  They cannot force the District to upgrade the pump station providing you still have an acceptable alternative disposal plan.  Primarily it is about logic.  Instead of doing the mechanical integrity testing during the wet season, we should do it in December or January when the flow is lowest.  I think there is a combination of storage and timing which could compensate for the lack of redundancy.

            Mr. Fennell asked what if we just got a bigger pump?

            Mr. Bulman responded that is an engineering solution too and it would bring you up to your permanent capacity.  It probably would not bring you up to 100% redundancy.  Basically you have an inside diameter in the well of 11.75 inches compared to 23 inches.  This is why the second well was built. 

            Mr. Fennell asked how much of a bigger pump do we need and how much would it cost?

            Mr. Bulman responded the cost estimate right now is around $365,000 to $400,000 for getting a little bit of additional capacity.

            Mr. Cassel stated the complexity of it is these pumps not only pump to Injection Well #1 when required, they push water normally to Injection Well #2.  From my understanding you need to make sure your pump is sized to your head pressure in your well; otherwise, you burn your pump up either way.  You overrun your pump, your efficiencies go down and you are off your pump curves.  There is an engineering solution of potentially replacing one pump with some things you can play with the pump curves to stay on curve for Injection Well #1 or Injection Well #2.  DEP is not requiring it at this point in time.  Is it a good use of District money right now to go ahead and jump at it or is it better to look at it with a timeframe, figure it out and plan for it by putting some funds aside over the next couple of years?  Then we can look at whether we replace the one pump to meter capacity issues on both sides.

            Mr. Hanks stated it looks like a risk assessment.  What is the downside financially if we do not do anything to those pumps or to that well?

            Mr. Bulman responded you are right.  It is a risk assessment.  It is a timing issue.  Right now during periods of expected flow you might be able to take a well offline for a period of 24 to 48 hours, which should be enough to run mechanical integrity testing.  Obviously if you break a valve when you are doing the test and something gets stuck in the well, who knows.  Even with a new pump you may only extend your period of being able to have Injection Well #2 offline for 72 hours instead of 48.  It really is a risk assessment. 

            Mr. Hanks asked what about the potential fines which are out there for urgency overflow?

            Mr. Bulman stated the regulator I spoke to who is the head of the underground injection control of the southeast district said we would have to look at it and take it up at the time based on conditions. 

            Mr. Hanks stated you can engineer for everything.  The question is how far or how much redundancy do you design into the system?  If it is a $10,000 per day, per incident fine, then it is one thing to consider.  If it is $300,000 per incident, per day….

            Mr. Bulman stated the only way you get 100% redundancy is with a new injection well; otherwise, you are just getting hours.  The question is; why would it be better to have 72 hours and 48 hours?  We can say you are permitted for 4.87 MGD.  Right now you are only getting 3.5 MGD down the well.  Our recommendation is to meet your permitted capacity. 

            Mr. Cassel asked do you believe we can get there by changing the one pump?

            Mr. Bulman responded it would probably require two pumps to get to your permitted capacity.  One pump will get you an additional half of an MGD.

            Mr. Cassel stated in the process of replacing both pumps, because those pumps, for the most part, go down Injection Well #2, then you really have to work on making sure they are on the proper pump curve.

            Mr. Bulman stated the pumps we would be replacing would be in the auxiliary pump station.  The primary pump station would remain the same because it is efficient.  The backup or auxiliary pump station would have to have and AFD or DFD to bring the pump back on a curve when it serves as a backup to a pump station rather than a well.  It would be rare.  It would simply have to have the ability to pump to the second well. 

            Mr. Cassel stated make sure this is all in your report when you get it squared away.

            Mr. Hanks asked when do you expect those pumps that are out there presently to reach the end of their expected life?

            Mr. Bulman responded I will defer to Mr. Macintosh.

            Mr. Macintosh stated I cannot give you an answer right now.  I can check into it and get back to you.

            Mr. Hanks asked ballpark?

            Mr. Cassel responded I would say at least two or three years.

            Mr. Macintosh stated I would say more than that. 

            Mr. Fennell asked we are not using them normally, is that right?

            Mr. Macintosh responded we normally have two of the three pumps running.  We have had some repairs on them.  I do not want to throw a number at you without any justification.  I can check into it.

            Mr. Cassel stated from my perspective what the report allows us to do is it gives us flexibility that we have analyzed what our issues are.  We know what the issues are.  I think we have some time to make a decision as to which way we want to go, but at the same time DEP is aware of the fact that we know we have an issue and we know how to fix it.  It is just that we do not have the dollars now so we are going to put it on our schedule to work on it.  I think if we proceed in this fashion, we have shown good faith in the fact we know what our operations are, we know what our liabilities are, we know what our issues are and we have a plan to address it.  We have done the best we can do with what we have at the present time.

            Mr. Hanks stated the other side of the equation is going to be Mr. Schwarz presentation which ties into the other side of this.

            Mr. Bulman stated if you can reduce your influent by one MGD.

            Mr. Fennell stated let us go to that.

            Mr. Schwarz presented the Board with a PowerPoint presentation.

            Mr. Schwarz stated this is an update to the report we discussed a few months ago based on flow monitoring data Mr. Daly and his staff put together for Lift Stations #1 and #4.  The area again we are talking about is the original portion of the town; basins one through eight.  We have data for basin one and basin four.  We have a number of packages of data going back to December of last year.  Some of the data was not usable because of the way it was initially downloaded.  I could not use the data from December at Pump Station #1 and from April at Pump Station #4.  All the flow data got put in the same column as the identity data so it was all mixed up with times and dates.  I would have to take 65,000 data points and go through them one by one.  It is there, but I did not do it for December and April.  I am basically looking at data for June and August at Pump Station #1 and June, July and August for Pump Station #4. 

            What you have is a flow meter which reads every 30 seconds, 24 hours a day from the time it starts to the time it ends.  I only used a full day’s worth of data to keep the numbers consistent.  For what it is worth, and this is just a comment, you cannot tell from the flow meter data which pump is running or if one pump is only running.  I cannot tell the alteration.  I can just tell the pump station is on.  These are duplex stations so you have one pump running, but I cannot tell the difference as to which pump is running.  It is just an observation.  It does not affect the data in any way.

            These two stations are both 20 horsepower pump stations, duplex stations.  Pump Station #1, the design criteria was 600 gallons a minute.  Pump Station #2 was 450 gallons a minute.  I am assuming the difference is based on the head conditions in the force main where they discharge.  The data we received for both stations indicate in Pump Station #1 you have both pumps running most of the time, but there definitely are periods where somebody is manipulating that and one pump is running.  On one day the only pump which comes on is Pump #1 and in a couple of days the only pump which comes on is Pump #2.  Somebody is changing the automatic alteration.  It does not make any difference.  The pump station is still operating.

            Mr. Fennell asked do you mean someone is coming and changing the pumps?

            Mr. Schwarz responded maybe the pump is out for service or there is something which needs to be replaced.  You can tell this from the data for Pump Station #1.  All the data I have for Pump Station #4, it is clear the pumps are automatically alternating all of the time.  Both pumps are running in one, but there are periods of time where someone is making Pump #1 do all of the work or Pump #2 do all of the work.  It is in manual and not automatic alteration.  It does not affect the data.  It is just a comment I observed from the data we have.

            Mr. Fennell asked is there a reason we do this?

            Mr. Daly responded they are replacing panels and we have electricians in-house who have been rebuilding them as opposed to calling someone to fix it for $40,000.  We have people who do this. 

            Mr. Hanks stated it is not really applicable or pertinent.

            Mr. Schwarz stated every station is a duplex station which meets the capacity of the requirements for one pump.  The second pump is basically a backup.  It is a State Law requirement.  Your requirements are met with one pump.  This is the data from June for Pump Station #1.  There was a considerable amount of rain before the reporting period.  Then it dried up.  During this period there was one rainfall event between the 29th and the 30th after which you show about a 23% increase in flows.  It did respond to the rainfall.  I would like to point out Pump Station #1 was 600 gallons a minute.  During this particular period we got close to pumping 600 gallons a minute and as low as 100 gallons a minute during peak flow times.  There are restrictions in the force main system which reduces the effective capacity of the pump stations and you certainly see this in some of the data.

            The other thing to point out is for this period the average run time is about 6.1 hours per day during this reporting period.  Broward County starts to become suspicious about a station’s capacity when you get to about 10 hours per day of operation.  The only reason this would come up is if somebody was proposing to redevelop a portion of this area and you had to find out about available pump station capacity.  If you were up about 10 hours per day of total run time, Broward County might say you have to increase the capacity of the pump station.  At least for the reported period from this station you are well below that.

            Mr. Hanks asked do you have a peak observed run time?

            Mr. Schwarz responded I can get it.  It is buried in the 60,000 lines of data. 

            Mr. Hanks stated okay.

            Mr. Schwarz stated this is the same pump station a couple of months later.  There was no rainfall at all during the period, but there was a considerable amount of rainfall in mid July.  The flows go back to where we were at the previous one.  This is 200,000 gallons per day.  The flows are up over 300,000 gallons per day during that period.  You can see the effect of a saturated ground picking up some infiltration.  It then drops off as time goes on back down to the 200,000 gallons per day level.  Again, there is no rainfall during this reporting period at all. 

            This is Pump Station #4 and is very similar.  We had a fair amount of rain prior to the June 5, 2010 start date of the data.  There was one rainfall event you can see where there is a small peak.  The ground is saturated before the reporting period and it starts to dry up a little bit as time goes on.  This is the same station again in early July.  It had been dry around the middle of June.  For this period it was dry; the period between these two pieces of data.  The flows had reduced a bit.  We had a heavy rainfall event during the Fourth of July weekend.  We have a rapid response.  If storm drains or roof drains are connected to the system, it will peak a lot faster than this.  Over the period of a day the flow goes back up to the saturated levels we saw in June. 

            Mr. Fennell asked do we have canal heights?

            Mr. Schwarz responded I have the canal heights.  They are all pretty constant.  They do not change much; probably because there is a control stretcher.  At least the canal data which was contained in the spreadsheet changes a tenth of a foot.  It stays pretty constant.

            This is the August data.  The only data that was valid was the first one, which is pretty much a continuation of what we had in the previous chart after that.  There were days with zero so I know the meter was not working properly because the pump station has flow during those times.  The data after that point is no good anymore. 

            Basically both stations respond to rainfall; not instantaneously, but over a period of hours and days after the rainfall event.  The flow goes up and it stays up until it starts to taper off again.  To me this indicates it is responding to infiltrated rainwater in the ground.  You would see a quick development of the peak flow if it were storm drains and roof drains being tied into the system.  This is the infiltration component and not the inflow component of the I&I you seem to have a problem with in these stations. 

            If you take a look at base flows, if you look at the minimum flows we see in each basin, they are in the order of 127,000 gallons per day when it is not raining and there have been extended dry periods.  Then we get up in both basins to about 325,000 to 350,000 gallons.  That is a 250% increase.  There is definitely a response to something other than the wastewater flows people are contributing.

            Mr. Cassel asked does the 125,000 to 127,000 gallon correlate relatively closely to the number of households in projected gallon flows?

            Mr. Schwarz responded I do not know. 

            Mr. Fennell asked how much does excesses account for?  How much of this is a percentage of our problem?  Is it 1% of the total water going over?

            Mr. Schwarz responded we looked at these because they are the worst basins in the District.  They are all clay pipe basins.  They are the oldest.  The percentage of excess flow or infiltration oriented flow is going to be higher in these basins than in the newer areas of the District. 

            Mr. Fennell asked given the lowest to the highest, how many millions of gallons per day are we talking?

            Mr. Schwarz responded over a period of a month; let us say this is gallons per day in Pump Station #1 so 30 times that gives a base flow.

            Mr. Hanks stated you are looking at about 22 MGDs for Pump Station #1 if you were to eliminate all infiltration. 

            Mr. Fennell asked is it the same thing for the other one?

            Mr. Schwarz responded they are about the same size.

            Mr. Fennell asked so are you talking .4 Million gallons per day?

            Mr. Schwarz responded this is an average over the period I saw.  If you look at the data we did not have a very rainy April, May and June.

            Mr. Hanks stated the Fourth of July weekend was a good one to capture.

            Mr. Schwarz stated it was a good one to get, but we have not had any extended periods of heavy rainfall until about a week ago.  You cannot just extrapolate this over 365 days.  For a period of a month you can easily be talking about 2 Million gallons per day.

            Mr. Hanks stated 2 Million gallons for the five or six basins we are talking about here at the plant.

            Mr. Schwarz stated I guess it is safe to assume these other eight basins in that area will behave the same.  We do not have data for all of them, but they are all roughly the same age and of the same material with the same groundwater conditions and same level of residential use.  We can make some assumptions, at least on the global affect on your system.  The next step would be taking a look at sewers themselves.  Find out what the problem is.  You have some information on it already.  I have not seen it.  It usually cost $2 to $4 a foot to do that kind of cleaning and inspection.  Maybe you can identify a pilot project.  If you can find a basin or sub basin within one of these project areas where you can isolate it completely, have a flow meter on it and get some data, you can put together a contract.

            If you bid a contract for sewer lining, that guy is going to clean and TV them anyway.  If we went out there, bid it and spend $2 or $4 a foot to do it, when you come back and do the lining work based on your TV, he is going to do it again anyway.  Maybe we can consider identifying a pilot project where you define a quantity of work, put the cleaning and TV there, and you actually go out and do some lining based on the results of that.  You structure it so you get the data back and tell them which lines need to be repaired.  Measure the difference between the before and after.  You can see what this pilot project does and you can extrapolate in terms of reducing I&I over all six basins.

            I figured six basins at 25,000 linear feet each.  It will be about $3 Million to $6 Million to line the mainlines in the basins.  You normally do not have to do all of them, but I do not know what the conditions of the pipes are and what the source of the problems are; if all the joints are leaking or it is a cracked pipe, I do not know what the problem is.  It would define what the extent of the rehabilitation would have to be.  If you needed to do the laterals, it would double the cost of the work to do a connection seal and usually the first couple of joints of the lateral. 

            The good news is there are a lot of contractors working in the area now and prices have been really good.  The work I have been doing for the last six or seven years is actually less expensive now than it was when we started six years ago.  We are back to where you were with talking about the injection well.  Where does this fit in your overall plan?  Wastewater treatment capacity with the exception of the deep injection well is functioning now.  It is not really a concern.  You have adequate capacity.  It is not a permitting issue.  It is not a connection issue.  It is really taking a look at this in perspective with some of your other needs. The bottom line is the pipes are going to continue to deteriorate.  They are not going to get any better.  They will continue to get worse.  You have some information now where you can plan a long term rehabilitation program. 

            Mr. Hanks asked when the cured in place pipe reaches the end of its life what are the remedies at the end there?

            Mr. Schwarz responded you will not be here.  The design life for the cured in place is considered to be 50 years.

            Mr. Hanks stated at that point there will be so many new technologies it will not matter.  How long has that system been in place now?  Is it 30 to 40 years?

            Mr. Schwarz responded this is the first developed area of the city.

            Ms. Zich stated this is not the first.  The first area is by The Dells and Village Green. 

            Mr. Fennell stated you are talking about $3 Million to $5 Million to do this.  Is that what I saw?

            Mr. Schwarz responded that would be a guess.  I am guessing there are 150,000 feet of sewers and basins.  If you do laterals it cost double.  That is if you needed to line every pipe and typically you do not need to line every pipe.  You have part of your system which is deteriorating and it has to be restored one way or another. 

            Mr. Cassel stated it appears that the dry periods, whatever the groundwater table is at, even if the mainlines might be below the groundwater table, we do not seem to have a significant issue with infiltration, but once the ground gets saturated during a rain event the higher elevations of the pipe are potentially those creating the bigger issues.  The pipes already under the groundwater table are either always contributing and it does not mean that much to us or they are tight and it does not matter.

            Mr. Schwarz stated we do not know until we take a look.

            Mr. Cassel stated until we dry up the top end.

            Mr. Schwarz stated or we do the internal inspections to see where the leaks are. 

            Mr. Fennell asked is there anyway to manipulate the groundwater level?

            Mr. Schwarz responded Mr. Bulman can put in a bunch of wells.

            Mr. Hanks stated or we do not discharge.

            Mr. Bulman stated alter all the elevations in your canals.

            Mr. Fennell stated that was what I really did not understand.  He said the canal levels did not vary much.

            Mr. Schwarz stated remember; I am only seeing one canal elevation, which is whatever is on Mr. Daly’s spreadsheet. 

            Ms. Zich stated I see the canal all the time that is across the street from me and it hardly ever fluctuates.

            Mr. Schwarz stated the levels change very little in the canal. 

            Mr. Frederick stated I do not think you want to lower the canals.

            Mr. Hanks stated then you have a water availability issue.

            Mr. Fennell stated the problem is the canals in that area are not very deep.

            Mr. Frederick stated they are pretty shallow. 

            Mr. Fennell asked would it help us if we dug out all of those canals?

            Mr. Frederick responded no. 

            The recorder picked up several voices talking simultaneously making it difficult to transcribe.

            Mr. Frederick stated one of the reasons why we try to maintain a stable level is because of every time we get a heavy rain.  We were up to eight feet the other day.  Then the guys from water and sewers tell us to get the pumps running because they are running 24 hours at the lift stations. 

            Mr. Hanks asked from the data you collected and presented here, can you tell how much of your baseline flows is groundwater infiltration through the system which is occurring regardless of whether we have rainfall events?

            Mr. Schwarz responded only if I knew the number of houses actually connected to each pump station. 

            Mr. Hanks stated then we would be able to come up with some order of magnitude.

            Mr. Daly stated it was in one of the reports.

            Mr. Fennell stated we are running late so we have to wrap things up in about ten minutes.

            Mr. Cassel stated the next item is you have the aerials of the project.  Also as an update you received a copy of the third party engineer’s report and review of the Plant F issues on the tank.  We have a meeting scheduled on Thursday with the contractor and the engineer to go over and voice the District’s position on the tank issues as well as expectations of fixing it. 

            Mr. Fennell stated what I see is the GIC’s recommendation are on the same level as CH2M Hill.  They both perceive about the same.  I am not sure if the original engineer does.  As you go into this my expectation is that we need to take some action to bring up those outer shells to compliance. 

            Mr. Cassel stated today they are x-raying the inner shell wells to evaluate their effectiveness and efficiency and to see how many of those meet compliance or do not comply with proper welding techniques and standards.  We will have that information for the Thursday meeting as well.

            Mr. Fennell stated so Thursday should be a day of reckoning. 

            Mr. Cassel stated yes.  The District’s attorney will be at the meeting as well. 

 

SEVENTH ORDER OF BUSINESS             Approval of August Financials and Check Registers

·         Summary of Cash Transactions

            Mr. Fennell stated it looks like we are way ahead.  It looks like the prorated amounts and the amounts inflow are favorable.  Have our rate increases occurred already?

            Mr. Cassel responded no.  They occur October 1, 2010. 

            Ms. Zich stated this is August Financials.

            Mr. Fennel stated the only issue we have is we have just gotten ourselves heavily committed to paying off a bond, which is why we had to increase the rates.  The excess cash and funds we have are going towards paying the bonds. 

            Ms. Zich stated we also have to pay $129,000 to FEMA.  Where will that come out of?

            Ms. Woodward responded we have sufficient funds in operations.

            Ms. Zich stated I know we have funds, but it is not an expense.  It is against money from four years ago so it would be coming out of the capital section.

            Ms. Woodward stated not really.  I see it as coming out of operations, but it is coming out as a miscellaneous item because it was not budgeted.

            Mr. Hanks asked is that the general fund or water and sewer?

            Ms. Woodward responded water and sewer.

            Ms. Zich stated but it is not an expense.

            Ms. Woodward stated sure it is.

            Ms. Zich stated I know, but it was an expense from four years ago. 

            Ms. Woodward stated anytime you have an item of revenue or an item of expense which does not occur in the year it should have occurred, instead of it going through its normal category you list it as either miscellaneous revenue or miscellaneous expense.  So it will be in operations, but it will be miscellaneous.  It will not be categorized as repairs or maintenance or anything specific of that nature. 

            Ms. Zich stated okay.

           

On MOTION by Ms. Zich seconded by Mr. Fennell with all in favor the financials and check registers for August were approved.

 

SIXTH ORDER OF BUSINESS                   Staff Reports (Continued)

            C.        Engineer (Continued)

            Mr. Johnson stated I have an additional update.  The SFWMD has related a draft report and it looks favorable right now.  It is a 20 year permit with only a 10 year compliance report. 

 

 

 

 

EIGHTH ORDER OF BUSINESS               Adjournment

            There being no further business,

           

On MOTION by Mr. Fennel seconded by Ms. Zich with all in favor the meeting was adjourned. 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                       

Glen Hanks                                                 Robert D. Fennell

Secretary                                                    President