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, March
16, 2009 at 3:04 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
Jane
Early CH2M
Hill
Sean
Skehan CH2M
Hill
Gerrit
Bulman CH2M
Hill
Bob
Koncar Severn
Trent Services
Brenda
Schurz Severn
Trent Services
Stephen
Bloom Severn
Trent Services
Dan
Daly Director
of Operations
Jim
Aversa Chief
Operator, Wastewater Plant
Doug
Hyche Utilities
Director
Randy
Frederick Drainage
Supervisor
Kay
Woodward District
Accountant
Jan
Zilmer Human
Resources Manager
Tom
Tepper Dunkleberger
Engineering and Testing
Paul
Hillers Hillers
Electrical Engineering
FIRST
ORDER OF BUSINESS Roll
Call
Mr. Cassel called the meeting to
order and called the roll.
SECOND ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval of the Minutes
of the February 23, 2009 Meeting
Mr. Fennell stated each Board member
received a copy of the minutes of the February 23, 2009 meeting and requested
any corrections, additions or deletions.
Ms. Zich stated I have one. I do not think I said Mr. Zilmer was the
check signer. So just scratch that
sentence. I am not sure what I said.
Mr. Fennell asked what page?
Ms. Zich responded page 15.
Mr. Hanks asked on page 13 I am
wondering as it relates to the financial audit, do we accept the financial
audit or are we in favor of it?
Mr. Fennell responded we accepted it.
Mr. Lyles stated the reason why
staff recommends accepting it is because a motion to approve it would in some
way, shape or form, connote you reviewed it and you are blessing it. Accepting it means you have a CPA firm which
has submitted it and you are accepting it.
You are taking their professional word for the contents of the
audit. You accept it and make it part of
the District’s records, but you do not indicate you are in any way approving
their work product. You are just
accepting it.
Mr. Hanks stated in the minutes it
reflects all Supervisors voting in favor.
Do you have any concerns about how it is worded?
Mr. Lyles responded no because the
motion was to accept it.
Mr. Hanks stated thank you for
clarifying this Mr. Lyles.
On MOTION by Ms. Zich seconded by
Mr. Hanks with all in favor the minutes of the February 23, 2009 meeting were
approved as amended.
Mr. Fennell stated before we get
started there was memorandum, which came from Mr. Cassel. As one of the Board members I would like to
extend our condolences to Mr. and Mrs. Vince Morretti. Mr. Morretti is one of the NSID Board members. Our best wishes are with you with the loss of
your daughter.
THIRD
ORDER OF BUSINESS Bid
Award for the Uniform Contract
Mr. Cassel stated we
went out and re-bid the uniforms for CSID, NSID, PTWCD and SWCD as a
group. Each district saved significantly
over the previous contract. We are
changing vendors. We are currently with
Cintas and we will be going with Unifirst Uniform Company instead.
Mr. Hanks asked do you have any
experience or indication as to how Unifirst will perform?
Mr. Cassel responded Mr. Hyche and
Mr. Daly did the backup research on the recommendations.
Mr. Daly stated the City of
Mr. Hanks asked do you have any
concerns about switching?
Mr. Hyche responded no, not at
all.
Mr. Fennell asked is this the first
time we bid?
Mr. Hyche responded no. We bid the last time.
On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded
by Ms. Zich with all in favor the contract for uniform services was awarded to
the lowest responsive bidder Unifirst Uniform Company.
FOURTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Consideration of Change
Order No. 1 & Final – Balancing Change Order for Pump Stations No. 1 &
2 Improvements for a Net Increase of $1,000
Mr. Cassel stated this is the final
balancing change order for the work done at Pump Stations No. 1 and No. 2 under
the contract. The change is the original
way the fences were going to be installed on top of the, shall we say seawall
scenario, provided a ledge so someone could use it to walk out on. After seeing it in the field I asked them to
modify the fence attachments to a fence which was attached to the front so you
would not have a ledge someone could walk out on, making it more difficult for
someone to gain access along the wall area into the pump station. This is for both pump stations so it is a
total of $500 for each one.
Mr. Fennell asked was that the
entire change order we had for this?
Mr. Cassel responded yes.
Mr. Fennell stated just $1,000. I like seeing that. I did happen to walk by. The fences do look much better. They are taller also.
Mr. Daly stated eight feet.
Mr. Fennell stated they do seem to
be more secure.
Mr. Daly stated unfortunately
someone broke through the east pump station already. They stole some of our signs.
Mr. Fennell asked when?
Mr. Hyche responded last
weekend. We narrowed it to Sunday
because we were here Saturday for the clean up and it was okay.
Mr. Fennell stated I saw the east
one on Thursday.
Mr. Hyche stated it is on the west
side of the station. All we found inside
was a can of beer. Luckily it is only a
small section of fence.
On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded
by Ms. Zich with all in favor Change Order No.1 & Final, balancing change
order for Pump Stations No. 1 and No. 2 improvements for a net increase of
$1,000 was approved.
Mr. Hanks stated good catch Mr.
Cassel. I imagine we could have lost
this amount of money sorting out a fall.
Mr. Cassel stated yes, an attractive
nuisance issue.
Mr. Hanks stated yes. Good catch.
Mr. Fennell stated I have a question
on the pump stations. Obviously when the
pump is not on they are not pumping any water out. Are they water tight areas? Can water still flow in and out in either
direction?
Mr. Hyche responded yes. If we have a gate we can open and close,
yes.
Mr. Fennell stated it looked to me
like we were actually getting some water flow in through the C-14 in the last
week or so. It was not just flowing into
us. It was actually flowing into some
other areas like
Mr. Hyche stated I do not know about
FIFTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Consideration of
Canal Bank Study Proposal from Dunkelberger Engineering and Testing, Inc.
·
Underwater
Diver Surveys
Mr. Fennell stated the next item is
an outgrowth of concern that one of our customers had about the bank. I guess we have looked at a number of
different areas. Explain what we are
doing here and the background.
Mr. Cassel stated with the Board’s
direction we went out and found the asbuilt of the canal profiles. We had a dive group, Industrial Divers
Corporation, do cross section diving.
The reports are in your kits of four of the eight sights. We also had discussions with Mr. Hanks and
the engineers. We looked at the issues
and decided at the last meeting we needed a geotechnical firm to look at the
soil conditions to be able to determine what our proper response needs to be
and what the proper repairs to the sections should be if we decide it is an
issue which needs to be repaired. Also,
to be able to provide us with enough background that it may be something which
is not necessary to repair at this point.
We contacted Mr. Dunkelberger’s firm, which has been around in the area
for quite a number of years. He has put
together a proposal for geotechnical work on eight sites we have
identified. Based on those eight sites,
we should get a representative sample of the potential conditions we look at
out there and be able to form an opinion with the attorney as to a proper
course of action from the Board.
Mr. Fennell stated let us start with
why we sent the divers out. This is a
summary of what they found. They said
there are a number of different profiles here.
I am not sure what areas they are all from. I think we started off with number one,
Mr. Cassel stated I believe it is
the complaint address.
Ms. Early stated the addresses
listed here are the new ones we still have to do.
Mr. Fennell asked do you know which
one is for the lady who complained?
Mr. Daly asked was it Ms. Epstein on
113 Way?
Ms. Early responded Ms. Epstein was
the very first one they did.
Mr. Daly asked but was it 113 Way?
Mr. Frederick responded no.
Mr. Daly stated it is not even on
here.
Ms. Early stated these are the new
sites. One of these is hers.
Mr. Fennell asked so which one is
hers?
Mr. Hanks responded it is either the
first or the last.
Ms. Early stated I think it is the
first one.
Mr. Cassel stated hers was
relatively a shallow slope, but it did have the cutbacks in it. It should be the first section of four
stations.
Mr. Fennell asked what are you
referring to when you say station?
Mr. Cassel responded if you see on
the sheets, there are Station #0, Station #1, Station #2, Station #3 and Station
#4. Along the property lines they dove
cross sections in four different locations.
Mr. Fennell stated so station just
means it is a mark.
Mr. Cassel stated yes. Somebody would also call it south property
line type of scenario. It gives you a running
profile of what the land and the underwater aspects are doing on her front
footage of the water.
Mr. Fennell asked do we know which
one is Ms. Epstein’s?
Mr. Cassel responded I believe it is
the first one.
Mr. Fennell asked Station #0?
Mr. Cassel responded no. It is the combination of Stations #0 through
#4.
Mr. Frederick stated the first
packet.
Ms. Early stated you can see she
still has the safety shelf we need.
Right were the water fluctuates a bit there is some erosion.
Mr. Fennell stated I guess a little
bit of wave action would cause that.
Ms. Early stated maybe just from the
saturation. I do not think they get
waves.
Mr. Fennell stated if these
represent the place we talked about, there has been some erosion there. It is not as bad as I thought it would be.
Mr. Hanks stated I do not think the
first section of Stations #0 through #4 is it.
Mr. Cassel stated it is either the
first one or as you said before, Mr. Hanks, the last one.
Mr. Fennell asked who would know?
Mr. Cassel responded it did not get
transferred to these sheets. I
apologize.
Mr. Fennell asked what is a
geo-tube?
Mr. Cassel responded a geo-tube is a
repair which was done in Eagle Trace.
Mr. Hyche stated we did a geo-tube
project in there as well as a riprap.
Mr. Hanks asked was this after
Hurricane Wilma or Hurricane Francis?
Mr. Cassel responded after Hurricane
Wilma.
Mr. Fennell asked what does a
geo-tube consist of?
Mr. Cassel responded it is a
material they lay down. It has filters
with sand. They go in and pump debris,
sand and silt from the bottom back into the tubes. The tube is a material like a sausage which
holds the bank in place.
Mr. Fennell asked is it going
continually down the bank?
Mr. Cassel responded yes. It goes laterally from property line to
property line.
Mr. Hanks stated they use these
things in
Ms. Early stated these are
approximately three feet in diameter.
Mr. Fennell asked do you put one in
every so far?
Ms. Early responded it is a long
tube along the whole length of the property.
Mr. Hanks stated they are whatever
length you need. You pump them full of
hydraulic fill and seal them up.
Ms. Early stated I think they put
two in.
Mr. Hyche stated in some areas they
put two in and in some three. They are
only showing two on this one. In some
areas we put three tubes in.
Mr. Hanks stated there are a lot of
different areas out there where there are some different conditions being
shown. If you look further down the
package, you will see sections where there are slopes that are steeper than one-to-one
or approaching one-to-one. Unless you
are in a rock, that is not going to result in a stable slope over time.
Mr. Fennell stated some of these are
down to 16 feet.
Mr. Hanks stated yes.
Mr. Hyche stated they are all pretty
deep in Eagle Trace.
Mr. Fennell asked what is our
conclusion from the diving?
Mr. Cassel responded it tells us the
current conditions, but it does not provide us with the information we need to
make a recommendation to the Board as to whether there is a need for the Board
to do any repair work or is it the conditions and if so, what the recommendations
for repair might be in the future. The
purpose of the Dunkelberger Engineering and Testing, Inc. geotechnical study is
to get us the information so we can come back to the Board with recommendations
as to what type of an issue is this, how big of an issue it is or if it is an
issue for the Board to deal with or not.
Mr. Fennell stated you have a
profile, but you cannot draw a conclusion from it so you are going to do more
studying.
Mr. Cassel stated exactly.
Mr. Fennell asked will this result
in a conclusion?
Mr. Cassel responded Mr. Tepper is
in the audience this afternoon and can respond.
Mr. Tepper stated I am the Vice
President of Dunkelberger Engineering and Testing, Inc. The intent of the study is to take these
areas and evaluate them. We really want
to look at the global stability of those slopes; effectively the top of the
bank all the way down to the base of the canal and look at the global affects
of what may happen if the materials there have modest strengths and are overly
steep. Secondarily I think we are going
to see some conditions out there where film materials up near the ground
surface to the shallow water table may be sustaining erosion due to, perhaps,
wave attack or seepage as Ms. Early suggested.
We want to look at this too. The
more we can come away with a comment and evaluation with regard to overall
stability, in the case of localized instability, to provide you with a series
of solutions which can be implemented in order to stop the erosion where there
is a high probability of the bank regressing into private property adjoining
those canals as well as giving you a cost for implementing those
solutions.
Mr. Fennell asked how long with the
study take?
Mr. Tepper responded I think we
budgeted out three to four weeks from receiving the notice to proceed to the
point we would turn in the report back to the Board.
Mr. Fennell asked are we looking at
approximately $15,000 for the total project?
Mr. Tepper responded that is
correct.
Mr. Hanks asked will this encompass
the variety of conditions?
Mr. Tepper responded that is
correct. It is roughly a day of a
project engineer’s time, looking at topographic information and correlating the
diver information. We are proposing to
go in, not necessarily adjacent to the canal, but certainly in a lot of areas
where these instabilities have been reported and make some drawings to really
understand the geology there, understand the strength of the materials which
affected the canals and then we will do stability evaluations.
Mr. Fennell asked how many sites are
we going to be looking at?
Mr. Cassel responded all eight of
the known sites we had complaints or issues with at the present time.
Ms. Early stated he is also going to
look at the majority of the canal banks along there by boat.
Mr. Tepper stated yes. We are basically going to go into these areas
where instability has been reported and tie in both the subsurface information
the diver’s report with some ground truthing through reconnaissance done from a
small boat.
Mr. Fennell stated this is a point
of interest;
Mr. Lyles responded we do not own
Mr. Fennell stated I know there is
history in
Mr. Hanks stated we are not sure of
what the real conditions are and whether or not a potential risk is out there
or maybe not a potential risk, but whether or not it is a potential
occurrence. This is where the global
stability of it would come into play as well as the localized stability will
help address whether the encroachment or the erosion of the bank is going to
progress further on back over time or if it is a stable situation not likely to
progress further. This is what we are
trying to establish as well as whether or not, and this is just from an
engineering standpoint not a responsibility standpoint, but does something need
to occur to stop it from getting worse.
Mr. Fennell stated okay. Those were all of my questions. Do you have any questions?
Ms. Zich responded I am really not
familiar with this. I can understand why
the homeowner is concerned. I would also
like to know why it is doing that, if it is going to continue to do it and who
is responsible.
Mr. Hanks stated there are two
separate issues. One falls more into Mr.
Lyles’ realm; which is, who is responsible for it. The other side of it is what is happening and
what is likely to happen given we do not do anything or given we take modest
corrective action. Those two things are
independent of each other. Ultimately
the solution cannot occur without resolution of both. Is that fair to say?
Mr. Lyles responded I think that is
fair to say.
Mr. Fennell asked are there any
other questions or comments?
There not being any,
On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded by
Mr. Fennell with all in favor the proposal from Dunkelberger Engineering and
Testing, Inc. was accepted as presented.
Mr. Hanks stated thank you Mr.
Tepper. I am looking forward to your
report and learning a bit more on this.
Mr. Fennell stated thank you very
much for coming.
Mr. Tepper stated I will wait to
receive my marching orders. Thank you
for having me.
Mr. Cassel stated in conjunction
with that the first dive round we did, we only did four sites which you have in
front of you as the underwater survey.
We got another quote from Industrial Divers Corporation and a quote from
Fish Tec, Inc. to do the other four sites, which were not done the first
time. We would like to go ahead and
proceed.
Mr. Fennell stated that makes sense
to me. It is kind of strange. It looks like you were asking for money, but
at the same time…
Ms. Zich stated it looks like the
same addresses.
Mr. Cassel stated the results are
from the prior four sites we dove, the original four sites. The proposal is for the other four sites we
did not dive the first time. The Board
wanted to get some information back quickly to discuss. The parameters for diving all eight sites
were more than our discretion area. We
would have had to go out for bids. In
order to get the four sites dove quickly to get information so we could know where
to start, we did not want to waste money by diving eight sites until we got
into it. This is why we are coming back
for permission to dive the second four sites.
Ms. Early, which one do you want to use?
Ms. Early responded we recommend
Fish Tec, Inc. for $3,100. Mr. Frederick
has worked with Fish Tec before.
Mr. Hanks asked what is the
difference between the two?
Ms. Early responded $100.
Mr. Hanks asked why go to somebody
else other than who has been out there preparing the reports and we have been
working with? My concern is we will get
a different format and we will have to, as a Board and as engineers, digest a
different format in a report.
Ms. Early responded to get the
prices, since we did not do bids on the first set, on the second one I sent
five companies an example of what we just did and said it was the format we
wanted. You can go with whomever you
want. I just got the bids and the low
bid was $3,100. I know Mr. Frederick has
worked them.
Ms. Zich asked is Fish Tec, Inc.
local?
Ms. Early responded no. They are from
Mr. Hanks stated from looking at
their letterhead it does not appear they are engineers. I do not want to have them recommending
repair options.
Ms. Early stated they did that
because Industrial Divers Corporation recommended repair options.
Mr. Hanks stated I did not like
seeing that in there either. Mr. Cassel,
what are your thoughts?
Mr. Cassel responded we could use
either. I know Fish Tec, Inc. has come
in, on a number of things, significantly better priced compared to Industrial
Divers Corporation. I know they are
competing hard for work. I understand
from Mr. Frederick and Mr. Schooley that the work they do is good. I would have no problem with either. We have used Industrial Divers Corporation a
number of times in the past as well. If
you are more comfortable with making sure you get the same type of report and
the same person doing the diving, I would say to got with Industrial Divers
Corporation, If not, save $100 and go
with the Fish Tec, Inc.
Mr. Fennell asked counsel; do we
have any issues on this?
Mr. Lyles responded I do not believe
so.
Mr. Fennell stated the fact is you
already have four done and you are going to do another four. To me a maximum of one report is all you want
rather than two different reports coming from two different groups. We are supposed to get a good written report
out of Industrial Divers Corporation.
Mr. Hanks stated the other report is
more comprehensive than what is contained in this packet.
Mr. Cassel stated yes. The reason I pulled it off was because of the
recommendations on the issues. I did not
want it as part of the record for the diving company’s benefit as well as the
benefit of the District.
Mr. Fennell stated I would think we
should just continue with Industrial Divers Corporation.
Mr. Hanks stated if at a future date
we need to get a second opinion on things, we can go back to Fish Tec for
review; should there be a question.
Mr. Fennell stated you are
essentially halfway through this.
Mr. Hanks stated we could go through
$100 in a half hour of engineering fees.
I say we should just stick with who we know and who we have used
previously.
On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded
by Mr. Fennell with all in favor the Board authorized continuing with the
services of Industrial Divers Corporation for the remaining four sites at a
total cost of $3,200.
Mr. Hanks stated I would like extend
a thank you to Fish Tec, Inc. for putting that together. Please let them know we just want to maintain
continuity through this initial phase.
Mr. Cassel stated we will convey
that to them.
Mr. Daly stated I had the
opportunity and pleasure of speaking with Ms. Epstein about a week ago
regarding this project. Would it be fair
to say we will not expect anything until mid to late summer? I would imagine Dunkelberger’s report will
not be back until the May meeting.
Mr. Cassel responded May or possibly
June.
Mr. Daly stated she said when the
people came out to look one man stood and jumped on the ground and it started
to move. She has heightened awareness.
Mr. Hanks asked did you explain we
are investigating and trying to figure out what has occurred?
Mr. Daly responded yes.
Mr. Fennell asked can we prioritize
that site?
Mr. Daly responded I would hope that
we would.
Mr. Fennell stated we will go out
and see that one first.
Mr. Daly stated so it will probably
be July or August before we decide to take on something.
Mr. Fennell stated we are still investigating. We can prioritize that so we can have someone
from engineering out there in a week or two.
We want to show we are taking action.
Mr. Hanks stated we are four weeks
from the April meeting. We would like to
have seen Dunkelberger at least gone out there and done some field work for our
April meeting and have some feedback for our May meeting. July or August is too late. I think they will be happy to get this done
quickly considering the economic climate everyone is in.
Mr. Daly stated thank you.
SIXTH
ORDER OF BUSINESS Staff
Reports
A. Manager
·
Discussion
of Fork Lift Replacement
Mr. Cassel stated in my weekly
meetings with staff it has come to my attention the existing fork lift we have
is in dire need of some extensive repairs to the tune of about a little over
$10,000. That machine is a 1987
machine. It is over 20 years old. It is there.
We looked at potentially replacing it with a used piece of equipment we
can get, but it has to go out for bid.
We are trying to figure out how to do it. We are looking at a used piece of equipment
which is ten years old for approximately $20,000 and we can get some trade in
value off of our existing machine. With
the bid requirements, we will still have to go out and bid. That machine may still not be there.
Last
week we kept thinking about it and decided there might be another way of doing
it. We could do a five year
lease/purchase on a new machine and spread it out. It would cut our cost over time and we would
have a brand new machine where the maintenance is covered under the lease. At the end of the five year lease we have a
new piece of equipment which will last us 20 to 25 years.
Mr.
Fennell asked where do we use this?
Mr.
Cassel responded it is used here in the plant.
It is a rough terrain fork lift for moving pallets of chemicals, lifting
2,000 pound motors onto trailers to ship them out for repairs and general
purpose needs around the plant for moving heavy equipment.
Mr.
Hanks asked is this something we can schedule a rental for short term duration
or is this sporadically needed throughout the year?
Mr. Cassel responded it is sporadic.
Mr. Hyche states we use it as back
up. If it is needed, it is there and we
use it.
Mr. Fennell stated there is a long
term need for it.
Mr. Hyche responded yes.
Mr. Fennell stated so there is a
long term need for it. Let us figure out
the most economical condition over a 10 to 15 year period.
Ms. Zich asked do you have any idea
what a fork lift cost?
Mr. Cassel responded $65,000.
Mr. Daly stated about $1,500 a
month.
Mr. Fennell stated on the other hand
this does not sound like it is a constantly used item either.
Mr. Hyche stated it is not used
eight hours a day.
Mr. Cassel stated that is why I am
saying the lifespan. Looking at the
repairs, in order to bid a used piece of equipment, do we know what we are
going to get looking at the cost of it?
If it is already ten years old, we will get another ten years out of it
or do you go for a new one under lease/purchase type items.
Mr. Hanks stated or perhaps we can outright
purchase considering the economic times.
People may be willing to take a reduced profit.
Mr. Cassel stated we can do it as a
lease/purchase and an outright purchase as two options and bid it one time to
see what we get.
Mr. Fennell stated it also sounds
like since it is not a constant use item you could probably go with a good used
item.
Mr. Cassel asked but this type of
thing has to be a bid item so how do you determine which is good and which is
not on a bid scenario?
Mr. Fennell responded it does not go
to bid.
Mr. Cassel stated the attorney just
reminded me there is some legislation in place that I am not sure if it is
going to pass or not, but will allow special purpose governments to piggyback
off of county bids and state bids, which should also save us from not having to
go through all the bid processes. We can
buy off of someone else’s contract. This
was brought to our attention by Mr. Colon at NSID. I have everyone looking at ways to save both
districts revenue. Mr. Lyles said it has
not passed yet, but if it does, it opens an opportunity for us.
Mr. Fennell stated well it is an
economic decision.
Mr. Hanks asked what is the
potential for this machine to breakdown in the next 30 days?
Mr. Daly responded it pretty much
has.
Mr. Hanks asked what are we doing in
the interim and do we have a contingency in place for it?
Mr. Hyche responded we use attached
forks to the combination machine, which can be dangerous at times.
Mr. Cassel stated it is not the
safest way to do what we do in some of these situations so it takes longer and
it does require more safety observation.
This is why we do not want to continue doing what we are doing. It is not the best way to handle some of the
material. Some of the materials they
have to get to are inside of buildings where you have to get the lift right up
inside.
Mr. Daly stated it has been
approximately six weeks since it broke.
After you take it to get repaired and you get the bid, it opens up a
real of opportunity as to whether we spend the money or look elsewhere. This is why we are discussing it at the
meeting today.
Mr. Hanks asked what are your
thoughts on the $10,000 it will take to repair it and what additional life do
you think we will get out of it?
Mr. Daly responded the problem is
that is not the question. The question
is what will break next in the next year and is it another six or eight?
Mr. Hanks responded that is always
the question.
Mr. Daly stated it does not look
like it is good money spent. It may be
the cheapest way to go.
Mr. Fennell asked is this used
solely by CSID or is it used by other groups?
Mr. Cassel responded CSID. It is for plant use only.
Mr. Hanks stated let us get some
numbers then.
Mr. Fennell stated it sounds like
you need to rent a piece of equipment right away. We want to make sure we are safe for the next
three or four months until we get some kind of deals. That at least buys you some time. Next month come back to us with what the
considered best options are.
Mr. Cassel stated we will proceed
that way.
Mr. Fennell stated you are using a
fork lift for doing general things. Is
there some other kind of case which says you need something different than a
fork lift which does the same thing? I do
not know if there is some other kind of special equipment or do you use this
for so many general purpose things that a fork lift does it best?
Mr. Hyche responded basically. It unloads motors. It pulls motors out of buildings. We actually have an attachment to the fork
lift which allows us to go into buildings and pull this equipment.
Mr. Hanks asked what did you call
this type of fork lift?
Mr. Cassel responded rough terrain.
Mr. Hyche stated it is an industrial
type of fork lift.
Mr. Fennell stated just make sure
whatever you get, you can fill it up yourself here. I can see where it would be really handy in a
hurricane; especially since we have so many trees. Come back to us next month. At this point I think it is under your normal
maintenance budget to get a three month rental.
You need to do your proposals fairly quickly so you know how long you
need to rent something for.
Mr. Cassel stated exactly. We wanted to bring it to the Board to let you
know what we were having and we wanted to have a discussion to get a feel for
which direction you wanted us to take.
Mr. Hanks stated if there is a 20 year
life cycle on this piece of equipment, you are talking about $3,000 a
year.
Mr. Fennell asked do you ever take
it offsite?
Mr. Hyche responded no.
·
Annual
State of the District
Mr. Cassel stated you will remember
after I was here six months I gave you a six month synopsis of where we were
with the District and how we would move forward. You mentioned a yearly report and last month
you brought up the fact you had not seen the yearly report yet. It is almost a year. You have before you some of the things we
have accomplished and some of the things we are working on. I believe the interaction between Severn
Trent Services and the onsite staff has been going extremely well. We have made a lot of progress in improving
how we operate and how we are looking at different situations. I think the staff has stepped up tremendously
on making sure we are complying with rules and regulations. I think we are moving forward quite well.
Mr. Fennell stated I believe we have
someone here from Severn Trent Services today.
Mr. Cassel stated yes. I will introduce my boss, Mr. Koncar. He is the General Manager of Severn Trent
Services. He is here this week to answer
any questions you may have.
Mr. Fennell asked have there been
any management changes in Severn Trent Services? We have seen a couple already in
accounting. Has anything else been
changing?
Mr. Koncar responded we have no
other plans for staff changes this fiscal year.
Our fiscal year starts April 1, 2009 and goes through March 31,
2010. Our budget has already been
set. We currently have no personnel
changes planned.
Mr. Fennell stated let me put in a
little caveat here, which I feel is necessary.
These are tough times. What a lot
of companies will do is decide to do more with less people. We do not want that. We want you to do more for us during tough
times. This is a time to think of how to
please your customer, us, more than it is to pull back within Severn Trent
Services. So if you are getting some
strength or someone thinking along those lines, let me tell you, especially
given the history of this particular District, the right way to keep us happy
is not to do less with less people, but to do more. Mr. Cassel is doing a great job for us
here. We like the degree and hands on
type of management we have had. We
developed a management style here which is local along with Severn Trent
Services.
We like to see Mr. Cassel around the
place. We want to make sure he is coming
here and taking a strong interest in what goes on because in the end he is the
person responsible. What I do not want
to see is for him to all of a sudden become responsible for a lot more other
departments as maybe you consolidate or decide to do something. Do not do that to us.
Mr. Koncar stated I think you make a
good point. The other issue is because
of the economic times, especially in the district business, there obviously
have not been a lot of new districts created.
There are not many opportunities out there for new business. What we have to do is make sure we are
serving our existing clients because the last thing we want to do in this
environment is lose clients we already have.
The only way we know how to keep you is to provide you with excellent
service. That is what we are here to do.
Mr. Fennell stated I know how those
discussions go within corporations; cutting back versus keeping service. Let me tell you on the record that you have to
keep your service strong.
Mr. Koncar stated I agree.
Ms. Zich stated I have seen a vast
improvement over the past year. The
first year I came there were a lot of changes.
It has been a good year.
Mr. Koncar stated when I first
started with the company it was a nightmare.
We had some financial problems.
We had a lot of staff turnover.
We have been able to stabilize the staff. We have almost zero turnovers now. The economic conditions have not helped. It has created the situation where we did have
some staff reductions, but we have been able to retain the personnel we
had. Our key personnel are in place and
we are planning on keeping them along with the customers too. We will continue to do a good job for you and
we want to continue to have a contract with you.
Mr. Fennell stated okay. Mr. Cassel.
Mr. Cassel stated I listed several
bullet points. Staff is fully engaged in
regional water and wastewater processes.
We will be discussing some of the modeling later. They are taking an active interest. I am working on continuing to monitor
invoices. I do spot checks to make sure
everyone is signing off on the invoices and are process is staying in
place. At the last meeting the audit
found the processes were good on the internal control of finances. We took your pictures today for the
identification tags. You will get your
own identification tags as well as hardhats.
We are waiting on a letter from DPEP.
The existing project is closing out.
Once we get the letter from DPEP and we get our change orders for the
existing project, it will be finalized. `Final
payments will be made and releases. The
existing one is there. We are ready to
issue the Notice to Proceed for Plant F.
Mr. Hanks asked do we have the
insurance?
Mr. Cassel responded we have the
insurance squared away. We are ready to
issue the Notice to Proceed. We worked
out some other issues with the city. The
city has been working very well with us on this. I think we should be up and ready to go
quickly. Projects are coming in and they
are getting done. We have done a good
job with permit renewals this year. We
added $13,000 in stormwater permit renewals.
Those are things we constantly keep going with. We keep fine tuning and looking at improving;
Mr. Daly, Ms. Woodward, Mr. Hyche, Mr. Frederick, Mr. Aversa, Mr. Zilmer and
the rest of staff have all done a great job.
We are currently in the process of revising the employee manual. Mr. Zilmer has redrafted and updated it. Key management staff has all sat down
together and worked through all the wording; making suggestions, fine tuning it
and making sure it is applicable to our situation. When we finish it we will give it to Mr.
Lyles for review so the Board can look at it to see if you agree with the new
policy manual for employees and we can then go forward from there. We are constantly moving forward.
Mr. Fennell stated sounds good. I think your first year here has been good
and I am looking forward to where we are going in the next year. In fact, at our next meeting I would like for
you to give us what your goals are for the next year. I would also like to hear a couple of minutes
from each one of our key manager; what are the things you are looking at for
next year and what are some of the key items we should be looking at.
Mr. Hanks stated or if there are any
concerns about how we are doing things right now and what you think we should
be doing to adjust the way we are operating as a Board, as management and as a
team to address those concerns.
Mr. Fennell stated yes. We are going to give your five minutes next
month to talk about what you think we should change and be doing
differently. Does that make sense Mr.
Cassel?
Mr. Cassel responded it sounds
great.
Mr. Fennell stated as you know we
are fairly open in the Board; although we still have a structure. We do need input because you are the ones
running everything every day. We do
listen to input and we try to address any concerns. I would ask you today, but I have caught you
off guard. As a Board member I am happy
with how we have done in this past year.
I think we have made an immense amount of progress in a lot of different
areas; from finance through accounting.
We have new programs on board. We
have money in the bank, which we have not lost yet, and we are building
projects.
Mr. Cassel stated if all of you
could put it in your schedule to come about an hour early next month, we would
like to do a PR groundbreaking opportunity set up. We would like to take pictures of the Board
during a groundbreaking ceremony and publicize it out to the city and others to
let them know we are continuing to move forward to provide high quality water
service to the residents of
Mr. Hanks stated we could also
invite the city commissioners to the groundbreaking.
Mr. Fennell stated that sounds like
a good idea.
Mr. Daly stated we will do some
press releases.
Mr. Fennell asked is this going to
delay us a month?
Mr. Cassel responded no. The Notice to Proceed is there. Even with the Notice to Proceed, the
contractor cannot put a shovel in the ground until he actually gets the
permit. We have been helping with trying
to get most of the issues solved with the city early on so his time to get his
permit is lessened. We had a meeting
last week and it went a long to minimize other review issues we might be
running into. That has been updated and
back to the city and we are moving forward with it.
Mr. Fennell stated I think it is a
great idea and I think you are right. We
should invite the Mayor and the commissioners to come.
Mr. Daly asked will 60 minutes be
enough time?
Mr. Fennell responded yes.
Mr. Daly asked will you be able to
make it an hour early?
Mr. Fennell asked when is our next
meeting?
Ms. Zich responded April 20, 2009.
Mr. Fennell asked because we are all
meeting together will it be an issue?
Mr. Cassel responded that is what we
were just discussing on a sidebar.
Mr. Lyles stated doing it at 3:00
p.m. makes that problem go away.
Mr. Fennell stated that will
work.
Ms. Zich asked are we now doing it
at 3:00 p.m.?
Mr. Cassel responded yes.
Mr. Lyles stated I believe the city
will do their own thing, but we should tell their clerk.
·
Monthly
Water Charts
Mr. Fennell stated I saw we tried to
do some more work on correlation of water pumping out and drain water. I have to admit I did not see a correlation,
which is kind of amazing. What is going
on here?
Mr. Hanks responded you do have a
correlation within the water being pumped and the water coming into the plant.
Mr. Fennell stated that I understand.
Mr. Hanks stated there is no
variation in rainfall and no variation in the canal level.
Mr. Fennell asked what is going on
here? We can throw this one up to
management. Here is the issue. We have pump stations which work really hard
and we thought it was all correlated to high rainfall, but then we found in
this past month or two in which we had high correlation of wastewater being
pumped in, but we were trying to figure out where the water was coming
from. We thought maybe it was rain, but
it was not the rain. Then we thought it
may be canal height, but we could not correlate it to that either. Is someone else draining a bunch of water
into us that we do not know about all of a sudden?
Mr. Hyche responded actually, this
month our wastewater flow is down as well as lift station hours in comparison.
Mr. Fennell asked how do we get more
information to give us a better handle on what is going on?
Mr. Hanks responded you need to set
up a flow test coming into a lift station, break down the sub basins and
identify your piping, what the lengths and diameters are, and do a 2:00 a.m.
flow monitoring to see what kind of flow you have coming into the lift station
at 2:00 a.m.
Mr. Hyche stated just do a 24 hour
constant sample of the water level.
Mr. Hanks stated well you can do
that. There are a couple of ways you can
do more specifics on it. You need to get
your baseline infiltration. It is quite
possible this area is well within the parameters for infiltration. It may not be. If we notice this is a problem in the dry
season without any rainfall and we have infiltration, then we are sure it is
groundwater. We may need to do the test
again in the summertime to capture a rainfall event. We might be able to get some ideas on surface
runoff. There are a couple of different
ways. If you would like I can help with
Mr. Skehan, Mr. Hyche, Mr. Frederick and Mr. Cassel to come up with some
different ideas.
Mr. Fennell stated we obviously need
some more data. It is true when we get a
lot of rain we get more water processing, but the fact is we have situations
where we do not have a lot of rain and we are still getting a lot of water
processed. There is another strong
contributor here other than just pure rain.
The other thing which was kind of interesting, and I am just going to
assume it had something to do with how he lined up the charts, is waste water
influence lead the lift station runs by a day or two. I would have expected it the other way
around. Would you not expect the lift
stations to start to run before you get wastewater flowing back to the plant or
is it just a data issue?
Mr. Hyche responded I think this is
just a data point. It might just be the
timing of it and how it overlays in there.
Mr. Fennell stated that is what I
was going to assume because it should not be like that. Right now you have the effect before the
cause. Something else is also happening
here, which is significant. We are
talking about millions of gallons. This
is not a trivial amount of water.
Mr. Hanks stated trying to still
look from graphs like this; I think you are going to be chasing it around for
years trying to pick out the correlation.
You have so many variables out there with people on vacation for spring
break or whatever other conditions there are.
Mr. Hyche stated Mr. Bulman just
pointed out those peaks in flows are on the weekends. There are three of them.
Mr. Hanks stated February 13, 2009
was a Friday. Mr. Hyche, so we can start
pulling everything together I would like either a utility atlas for this area,
surveying it, or better yet, lengths and diameters so we can at least start
coming up with a baseline.
Mr. Hyche stated okay.
Mr. Hanks stated also if it is just
residential or if we have commercial establishments such as restaurants. You know; if this is pulling in the movie
theatre and the Outback Steakhouse.
Mr. Hyche stated okay.
Mr. Hanks asked what do we have
next?
Mr. Fennell responded so we are
going to continue to find out.
Mr. Cassel stated more correlations.
Mr. Fennell stated this particular
area we say is way above what the other areas are typically. We have four lift stations which are
contributing almost 80% of the excess wastewater we expect to see, but we are
not sure quite why. The correlations for
the weekends tell us something.
Mr. Hanks stated I will sit down
with Mr. Hyche and we will start pulling together a little more information as
to what is going on.
·
Utility
Billing Work Orders
There being no discussion, the next
item followed.
B. Attorney
Mr. Lyles stated I have
nothing new to report, but I did follow up on a couple of things which came up
in recent discussions. I went back and
confirmed you, Mr. Fennell, did in fact submit a letter to Senator Ring in
January of 2008 pointing out the concerns of the District. You specifically requested steps be taken to
initiate investigation into SBA’s investment of the surplus fund accounts it
manages for this District and other local governments around the state and
invited a response. One has not been
forthcoming from Senator Ring’s office.
I also confirmed that. It does
not specifically tell us anything. It
may mean they consider it a closed matter with the steps which have been taken
to change things in
On that front, Ms. Woodward has done
the lion’s share of the work to go back and prepare a document package for us
tracking all the way back to 1987 the various actions taken by the Board,
resolutions which were adopted and deposit documents. I have reviewed them. Ms. Woodward may want to chime in at any
point where it is appropriate. We have
not entered into anything I would categorize as a performance based agreement
or a limitation on the SBA with respect to how it would handle our particular
funds. They handle them within the four
corners of the statutes which cover their operations.
We as your staff, I do not think,
are in a position to tell you we believe they departed from the statutory
minimums that are applicable to the SBA.
Obviously the results are not what anybody expected, but I do think I
should tell you in the earlier versions of the various documents we reviewed,
it is very that the intent and the goal of the SBA is to maximize returns on
investments within the confines of the statutory restrictions they have. In fact, it expressly states at one point that
part of their goal is to maximize returns for local governments on their non
essential surplus funds they do not need immediately so they will have the
effect of higher earnings resulting in lower taxes or lower assessments to the
residents and people who pay the assessments in these various local governments
and districts. They did tell us and the
world years ago they were after returns and not totally security. I think it was everybody’s understanding that
it is a given with these relatively safe investment vehicles, security and
preservation of capital would follow.
The philosophical and therefore, based on these documents, legal
underpinnings of how they were going to go about doing the job for governments all
over Florida were somewhat geared towards increasing the returns you would get
on other types of safe governmental short term investments.
Finally, we did look into the type
of investment vehicle the District’s auditor reported as a potential out there
guaranteed by FDIC. Ms. Woodward has confirmed,
I want to give her the credit for doing the homework on this, that is not
really for operating type capital. It is
a permanent deposit which stays with the account. We would not be able to take our money when
needed to use for operational purposes, which is the surplus funds we have and
are talking about. It sounds to me
something line a guaranteed investment contract type of vehicle where you put a
chunk of money in which is not going to be needed for some known period of
time, which is sometimes the case for bond proceeds. For our ongoing operational needs that type
of account, I believe Ms. Woodward has concluded and I certainly concur, would
not serve our purposes.
Ms. Woodward stated this is on the
FDIC insured.
Ms. Zich asked is there s $250,000
cap?
Ms. Woodward responded no. Can we go back to the SBA and let me address
that first?
Mr. Fennell responded okay.
Ms. Woodward stated I have a couple
of additional comments. I appreciate all
of the credit, but in actuality it was more like a three ring circus. Mr. Bloom. Ms. Schurz and I all worked on
pulling together the pieces of the puzzle for the SBA. We did in fact go back to 1986 and 1987 and
determined that was when this District started putting funds into the SBA. Mr. Lyles is correct that what verbiage you
did find, while it was limited, kept emphasizing the return on investment. In the fine print, or as an afterthought, it
did note it had to be within the confines of what was reasonable and
rational.
When it comes to the FDIC insurance
I would actually like to turn it over to Mr. Bloom. He did most of the follow up by getting back
with a couple of banks in order to determine what this program really involves,
which was the reference I believe Mr. Benson made at the last meeting that
there was a possibility SunTrust had an account where if you put in a large sum
of money and you did not touch it, you would able to have 100% of the balance
FDIC insured. This is only partially
what Mr. Bloom found. There are some
other issues involved and he will be able to spell it out for you better than I
could.
Mr. Bloom stated this is a recap to
what Mr. Benson said during the acceptance of the audit last month. He mentioned there was possibly a deposit
account where if you left the money there and did not do anything with it, then
you get 100% FDIC insurance coverage on it.
We have gone back to SunTrust, Wachovia, Bank of America and a couple of
other banks to get a feel from those banks as to what was going on and if this
was possible. The FDIC has in place what
they call a temporary liquidity guaranteed program for certain types of deposit
accounts, but there are some catches to it.
One is that it is a non interest bearing account. You do not get interest on it.
They do have a small print they
added onto that as far as what they consider to be non interest. One of the things they consider to be non
interest is anything lower than .5%. If
you have a .5% deposit account or lower, they will classify it as non interest
and they will give you 100% FDIC insurance.
This program will only be in place until December 31, 2009. There is no guaranty what the FDIC will do
after that.
Mr. Fennell asked is this new?
Mr. Bloom responded it is not
new. All of this stemmed from what happened
at the end of last year with the bank problems.
This was put in place more for commercial funds and not for public funds
like us. I say this because all public
funds have the $250,000 FDIC insurance you mentioned and anything above that is
done through the
Mr. Fennell stated except for the
state.
Mr. Bloom stated except for the
SBA. In terms of Wachovia it does not
make sense to put your money into this non interest account when you are
already part of this collateral pool.
SunTrust has the same program with the .5% or lower, but then you start
running into the issues if switching all of your accounts over to SunTrust, all
of the direct deposits and all of the goodwill you have built with Wachovia you
will have to move into SunTrust. It
would just be additional coverage you already have with the state.
Mr. Hanks asked are we saving
anything if we make the move to these accounts?
Mr. Bloom responded you are not
going to get anything because you still have to be at .5% interest. On top of
that if the FDIC comes out and starts hammering the banks with fees, they are
going to try to pass it along to the customer.
Mr. Hanks asked so can it
conceivably start costing us money to park our money there?
Mr. Bloom responded yes.
Ms. Zich stated right now we are
about breaking even with all those CDs.
Did you notice how much interest we got?
Having $2.5 Million in the bank we get $200 a month. This is crazy. We are not getting any money for all those
CDs.
Ms. Woodward stated it is not the
CDs. I believe it is the money market.
Ms. Zich stated it is on the money
market. You are right.
Mr. Fennell asked how are we doing
with the CDs?
Mr. Bloom responded the CDs depend
on how long you put it in for. Nine
months were giving you approximately 2.5% at the time. It is a little bit lower now. That was in December. Right now a six month CD will get you
approximately 1.75%. One thing we might
want to take a look at is taking additional money out of the money market
account and possibly putting it in some more CDs, depending on the liquidity needs
we have.
Ms. Zich stated that was the money
market account that we had $2.5 Million and were getting $200 a month; not the
CDs. I am sorry.
Mr. Daly stated the whole idea with
the money market, if I am not mistaken, was to have five separate accounts so
we could continue to live on if there was a natural disaster.
Mr. Bloom stated the CDs, yes. The initial point was an operational
standpoint for the CDs. We started five
CDs at five different banks, not including Wachovia, all within the local area
so if there was an operational need, you had them.
Mr. Hanks stated if there was a
meltdown we would still have access to portions of our funds.
Mr. Bloom stated that is
correct. Keep in mind that with the
Mr. Fennell asked are you saying the
collateral is backed up by all the other banks?
Mr. Bloom responded the collateral
Wachovia has to put in; they back it up with government based type
security. In other words, you have the
FDIC and what Wachovia is putting in is also backed up by the government.
Mr. Fennell asked how much
collateral do they have backed up?
Mr. Bloom responded it depends.
Mr. Fennell stated it is not 100%.
Mr. Bloom stated no. It is not 100%. Not one bank is going to have to put 100% in,
but as a whole you are going to get 100% back.
Mr. Fennell stated the State of
Mr. Bloom responded it is a State of
Mr. Fennell asked is the state
actually going to hand over any money if something goes wrong?
Mr. Bloom responded no. They run the program. They determine how much collateral and what
percentage each bank has to put into this program to make sure everything is
covered.
Mr. Fennell stated but in the end it
is actually the Federal Government who backed up all of these banks. The program works given one bank is out of
sorts, but when all the banks go bad there is only one guy still standing up
and that is the government. That is
exactly what happened. The Federal
Government stepped in and backed them all up.
I thought
Ms. Woodward stated that is the same
thing as putting it into a non interest bearing account which is fully insured.
Mr. Fennell stated there was a time
T-Bills used to yield more than the SBA account did; even though, SBA was
trying to maximize it. I think we were
getting 2% out of it and I remember saying we could get 3%, 4% or even 5% out
of T-Bills, if you look a few years back.
What is our conclusion then?
Mr. Lyles responded I think our
conclusion is we have looked and looked again to make sure everything that
reasonably, and maybe a little obsessively, can be done to keep track, keep
control and maximize the security of the operating funds you have which are not
needed immediately. I think this has
been done. I think it has been looked at
from several different perspectives. I
do not think staff, and I do not want to speak for management staff, I do not
think there is anything we can tell you or recommend you do anything
differently than what you are already doing.
We think we have explored this thoroughly and where we are right now has
the best combination of security. We
moved the money out of the SBA where we could.
We have a small, but noticeable amount still there. My final comment is we have not lost any
money at this point.
Mr. Fennell stated we still have
$100,000 we cannot access. Is this
correct?
Ms. Woodward responded that is
correct.
Mr. Cassel stated one other thing we
did is we had several different accounts in the SBA and they had a program the
other week where we could consolidate them into one. Instead of having to keep track of three we
consolidated them down to one account with one amount of money.
Ms. Woodward stated we consolidated
them on March 31, 2009. Where it really
saves is in the administrative phase; the lower the balance in the account is,
the higher the administrative fee. It is
more noticeable because there is nothing there to earn interest and offset
it. It cleans it up and then we just
have one account to track until this whole thing gets closed out and taken care
of.
Mr. Fennell stated thank you all for
the effort. This is a huge learning
experience. I really had a lot more
trust in the State of
Mr. Lyles responded no sir.
C. Engineer
·
Project
Status Report
Mr. Fennell asked how come we have
not broke ground out there yet?
Mr. Skehan responded we are waiting
for this package of insurance information to be delivered and resolved. This was just handed me today. It is going to be bound this week and
documents will be executed. They will be
available for your signature by the end of this week.
Mr. Hanks asked will you need my
signature as Secretary, or just Mr. Fennell’s?
Mr. Skehan responded I think it is
just Mr. Fennell’s, but I will double check.
Mr. Cassel stated also, if you
remember, we pretty much told the contractor we were not going to issue the
Notice to Proceed on this one until he finished the other one; even if he did
have all his ducks in a row. I do not
want him to start one project while he is still messing around with another
project. I want it closed out. The contractor’s part is closed out. He has to get his pay request in. We are waiting for the letter. All of his inspections are passed. They are waiting to issue the change orders
and certificates of completion. They are
waiting on the DPEP letter.
Mr. Skehan stated on invoicing
package we are dropping off today is the last formal request. The next request will be the final. We are ostensibly close to having it wrapped
up.
Mr. Fennell asked are we bringing in
any money? Are we delayed about a month
or two from what we thought?
Mr. Cassel responded his time clock
does not start until we issue the Notice to Proceed.
Mr. Fennell stated okay. I do not want to see another $100,000 in
delays.
Mr. Cassel stated that is
specifically why we have not issued the Notice to Proceed.
Mr. Skehan stated from a permitting
standpoint we have a permit in place for the demolition of two of the
wastewater trains out there already. They
will be able to hit the ground running for demolition immediately. We have the West Palm Beach DEP permit in
place for construction on the wastewater side.
There is a Health Department permit in place for the new nano plant. We have the preliminary review comments
addressed, getting incorporated into the plans and specifications mostly in the
plans. We have all the comments from the
city. We are approximately two to three
months ahead of where we would typically be for issuing a Notice to Proceed to
a contractor. This permitting package we
will give them will have all the signed and sealed plans and all the comments
from the city’s preliminary review will be addressed. I am not saying the city will not have
additional comments, but they should have very few.
Mr. Fennell stated so the
preliminary meeting helped us out quite a bit.
Mr. Cassel stated yes it has.
Mr. Skehan stated they had a number
of comments for various components of the project. The one that was of any real significance was
HVAC and just ventilation types of materials.
The city’s philosophy is a little bit different than other locations
where they want everything on the plans.
They do not want to go to specification books to be able to review what
is there and what we call for. We are
trying to incorporate those comments into the plans.
Mr. Fennel stated it is the kind of
thing which will constitute three or four weeks as you revise the drawings.
Mr. Skehan stated it may not be that
long.
Mr. Cassel stated in the review we
worked out a situation with them to minimize redoing the plans by including
sections of the specifications in the plans as additional sheets. If something happens and we make the change
on the exact plan sheet, it ripple effects to multiple plan sheets. In the process, if something has to change,
for them to give you your final you would have to go back and revise as well as
redraw all those same plan sheets. By
using the specification pages as an additional addendum to the plans, if
something changes you can pull the one sheet, change the specification page and
they will accept it. They worked with us
to figure out ways to make the process cleaner, faster and easier for all of us
so they get the information they want, but it does not cost the District time
and money to revise later. It speeds up
the process with the contractor, the engineers and the District.
Mr. Fennell stated it sounds like
this is working better than I hoped. We
will see from the actual results. What
can I do to help? Should I call someone
and say “good job”?
Mr. Cassel responded they are
reading our minutes. They are cognizant
of how we are working together. They
understand we are pleased with their response and the way they are handling
it. We are working together. We have a positive relationship going with
them. I think issues we may have had in
the past with the city are gone. I see
it in their faces. They get frustrated
when they keep asking for the same thing over and over and have to turn it
around. They do not really want to do
it. It makes their job harder because
they have to look at the same set of plans again. I have used the comment if they want us to
give it to them on green paper, we will give it to them on green paper. It works.
It does not bother us to give it to them on green paper.
Mr. Fennell stated specially if you
know beforehand.
Mr. Cassel stated exactly.
Mr. Skehan stated the contractor was
in attendance at the meeting also so they got to hear first hand what the
expectations are. As a result, the
contractor will be taking forward the next stage of the permitting process as
one of their requirements. We do have
these comments addressed in advance.
Theoretically, the city will have their review done in less than two
weeks. This will be a significant
benefit for the contractor. It is a
positive thing.
Mr. Daly stated Mr. Fennell, you and
your fellow Board members will have a chance to do a meet and greet with city
officials next month. It will be a good
time to approach this.
Mr. Fennell asked anything else?
Mr. Cassel responded the projects
are there. We included the verbal description
of the status of the projects along with the timeline. We are going well there. Before we get into the SFWMD issue, there is
something I would like to bring back full circle. You had been commenting about the electrical
analysis. Mr. Hillers is here today to
answer any questions you may have.
Mr. Fennell stated I have been
trying to teach power factor and no one knows what I am talking about. I have some experience with this at home. Is it possible to do here? I assume we are getting charged by volts or
amps by the power company. We have so
many large electrical motors around here we ought to have a way to line up the
power factor.
Mr. Hillers responded I am the
President of Hillers Electrical Engineering and we are also consultants to CH2M
Hill. I am pretty familiar with your
water and wastewater plants. I have been
working on it for over 13 years. The
power company charges you on your kilowatt-hour usage. It is based on your real energy use.
Mr. Fennell asked how do they know
that?
Mr. Hillers responded because it is
a kilowatt meter. It takes the power
factor into consideration. Within your facility, which can
also be your house, you can have a motor __________ off your meter. The motor could have a bad power factor. You have two currents; your real power
current and your imaginary power current.
By putting a power factor correction capacity there you reduce your
imaginary current. This is where you
gain if you have a power factor correction capacity; at the motor. You would not gain anything at the meter
because you are not getting billed for any bad power factor.
Mr. Fennell stated but they have to
know what the power factor is.
Mr. Hillers stated in South Florida
they are not too worried about the power factor. In the northeast where you have heavy
machinery with really low power factor they are really concerned. As there system has a lower power factor you
have more losses on their end.
Mr. Fennell stated well this is a
magnetic engine you are talking about.
They are all electric motors.
There are no good capacitors motors that I know about. This magnetized energy is essentially lost
for most electric motors. I know the
power meter used at my house is volts times amps.
Mr. Hillers stated but it is times
the power factor.
Mr. Fennel stated no. There is no power factor. I put a capacitor in my house and I save
about 15%. I have a three phase power
meter and I can actually measure the power correction factor beforehand and I
can measure the power factor after that.
I was able to predict how much I would save.
Mr. Hillers asked did you do it on
your own?
Mr. Fennell responded yes. I also spent a week in Brevard County at the
solar electric efficiency place and went to school.
Mr. Hanks asked will we see savings
in our energy cost if we were to install capacitors at he high service pumps or
at our wells?
Mr. Hillers responded you cannot put
capacitors variable frequency drive motors.
Most of your high service pumps are on VFDs. In fact, VFDs improve the power factor. At the water plant your VFD applications are
your transfer pumps and your high service pumps. We cannot put capacitors there. They would blow up in a second because of all
the high frequency.
Mr. Hanks asked do we have any
opportunities to make the changes Mr. Fennell is suggesting which could
implement some savings? Where could we
make use of them? Can you think of any
situations where they could be useful?
Mr. Hillers responded at the
blowers.
Mr. Fennell stated you could do
something with the air conditioning at this building.
Mr. Hillers stated you could put
power factor correction capacitors at any constant speed motors. You will have the best gain if you put it at
the motor. If you look at your water
plant, your biggest energy consumers besides the wells are your transfer pumps
and your high service pumps. The high
service pumps in the new nano plant are going to stay. The transfer pumps are going to go away
eventually. You are going to have a new
nano plant with all the most recent technology.
Your high service pumps are on VFDs and they do pressure control. You are good to go.
On your wastewater side you have two
large energy guzzlers. One is your
blowers and the second one is your deep injection wells. The deep injection wells are on VFDs so you
are good to go on the deep injection wells.
The blowers are constant speed blowers.
You have fine bubble diffusers.
From a mechanical perspective you are very efficient. The only thing you could add is capacitors on
the blowers.
Mr. Hanks asked what those savings
just be realized by the start up of the blowers or would it be realized during
the running?
Mr. Hillers responded during the
running.
Mr. Fennell stated you should be
able to save about 10%. Do you have
equipment to measure this kind of stuff?
Mr. Hillers responded yes.
Mr. Fennell stated well first of all
the air conditioning for this building; I do not know how much it runs a month.
Mr. Daly stated $1,500 a month.
Mr. Fennell stated I guess we could
save at least $150 there.
Mr. Hanks asked what will the cost
be to install the capacitors?
Mr. Fennell responded probably $600
to $1,000.
Mr. Hanks stated so we are looking
at a year.
Mr. Fennell stated it is about a
year’s payback for these kinds of things.
Mr. Hanks asked is it a similar
payback time for the blowers?
Mr. Hiller responded except the
blowers are in an environment where we have to be careful with rust so you need
to put them where they are protected.
Mr. Fennell asked can you do a
survey for us of different places where you think they will work and do an
estimate of how much you think it will cost?
Mr. Hillers responded yes.
Mr. Fennell stated I think it will
be worth looking at this. We may not be
able to do it with the variable speed motors because those are a different kind
of thing.
Mr. Hillers stated but the VFDs
correct the power factors. You are fine
there. They convert AC to DC and this
conversion corrects the power factor.
Mr. Fennell stated there are still
several places where I think we could use this; any place which has air
conditioning and any place where we have constant motor speeds. It should be good for 10% to 15% improvement
and it should be about a one year payback.
There are some other factors too.
The motor becomes more efficient.
You actually draw less current through relays and everything else like
it. It increases the entire efficiency
of the operation. You said we are
spending $1,500 a month here and we have some other buildings which are air
conditioned. We have a $1 Million a year
electric bill. It is not going to be the
$12,000 a month I was hoping for, but maybe we can make it $1,000. The blowers could be substantial.
Mr. Hillers stated the end of the
suction valve you adjusted based on the incoming flow so you do not want to
overcorrect your power factor. You are
going to have to go with a worst case scenario to correct it. You can only correct so much.
Mr. Fennell stated you can
overcorrect or it will actually go back the other way. Still, a 25 horsepower motor is at least
about a kilowatt per horsepower which is 25 kilowatt.
Mr. Hanks asked is this something
which will be affected by us going to generator power occasionally?
Mr. Fennell responded no. It will actually make our generator power
less demanding.
Mr. Skehan stated we have to be
worried about warranties with new equipment where the blowers and the motors
may not allow for those type of corrections.
Mr. Hillers stated the motors you
have on your newer equipment are super efficient.
Mr. Fennell stated most of them do
not do this for some reason. I am not
sure why. They have better starting and
better efficiencies from other things.
Look and see what you think you can do for us. Thank you for coming.
South Florida Water
Management District Presentation
Mr. Cassel stated you will recall we
did the modeling profile with the City of
Mr. Hanks stated before we get into
this I noticed we had some issues on the pilot testing. Are we sure we are going in the right
direction on it?
Mr. Skehan responded we recognized
it about two months ago.
Mr. Hyche stated the issue there was
the fact we were bringing in backwash water through manifold to the influent
and the head of the plants, which they were drawing your source water from.
Mr. Hanks stated so we had cruddier
water than what we were expecting.
Mr. Hyche stated exactly.
Mr. Cassel stated it caused us to
run an extra 30 days so we will be using the allowance approved in the work
authorization for the extra 30 days.
Once we figured out the proper timing of the two operations going at the
same time, Mr. Hyche modified the timing of the backwash so it did not
interfere with the sampling.
Mr. Hanks asked is this going to be
a problem when we get the plant operational?
Mr. Cassel responded no. Your sources are totally separate.
Mr. Hanks stated I am sorry Mr.
Bulman. I just wanted to clarify this
before we got to the model.
Mr. Bulman stated I am with CH2M
Hill.
Mr. Fennell asked what is your
background?
Mr. Bulman responded my background
is hydrogeology. I have a masters degree
in geology.
Mr. Fennell stated okay.
Mr. Bulman stated I wanted to look
at the SFWMD permitting rules. They had
quite a bit of discussion the other week about this; the CSID projections for
the water use permit, with the projections going out 20 years, the model
development, the groundwater modeling, the results and the path forward. The regional water availability rule defined
by the SFWMD is critical. This is
something we spent quite a bit talking about it. The rule states any increase in direct or
indirect withdrawals from regional water bodies, these are the regional SFWMD
canals, C-14, L-36 and the Cypress Canal, those withdrawals over a certain
amount, which is defined as the base condition, must be quantified and
offset. There is no minimal threshold
for an increase of impact. If we request
an additional half million gallons per day for CSID, then any additional impact
to those water bodies resulting from that increase in allocation has to be
quantified and dealt with in the permit.
Mr. Fennell asked do you mean this
is not just water from the canals; this is the water we withdraw from the
ground too?
Mr. Bulman responded the water we
are withdrawing from the ground, CSID is looking at a projection of about an
additional half a million gallons per day to what their current base condition
is. Their base condition is a maximum
pumping over a 12 month period prior to April of 2006. At any point after that, it is equal to your
current permit allocation. Mr. Hyche,
you and I looked back at this last week and your base condition is equal to
your average pumping per day under the current permit. That is 5.02 million gallons per day. That is CSID’s base condition and current
permitted average per day pumpage. If
you are requesting an additional half million gallons, then it is not the
additional half million gallons you have to offset. That is what is being modeled. What needs to be offset is the additional
impact to those regional water bodies. This
presentation will go through this.
The groundwater numerical models
were used to evaluate the impact. Since
groundwater models track the water in the model, any increase in pumping will
have to come from somewhere. If the
rainfall in the model stays the same and other users’ pumpage stays the same,
then the model will show that some or all the water comes from canals. We are very fortunate we have all the local
canals in the water control districts in the area; most of the water comes from
those canals rather than the regional canals.
The problem with the computer model
is, as compared to the real world, there is no way to measure these few million
gallons of water in the real world from these regional canals. You cannot go out and measure that very
easily; particularly when you are looking at model boundaries that stretch all
the way across the Hillsborough Canal, the L-36 and the C-14.
Mr. Fennell asked are you saying 5
million gallons compared to the amount of water we have in our canals is
insignificant?
Mr. Bulman responded right and being
able to quantify what is seeping from the base of those canals into the
regional groundwater system.
Mr. Hanks stated your geologic
variability is going to white that out.
Mr. Bulman stated yes. It is enormous. You also have to look at what is being
discharged out of those canals everyday.
These few million gallons over tens of miles of canals is nothing. It is extremely difficult to measure. Most of the research, which is literature
research, has already been done. When we
made the groundwater model we used those parameters, gave them a range of
variables and calibrated the model.
The background for this particular
model is that three major utilities, you, NSID and the City of Coral Springs
join together. As you are all renewing
your water use permits you decided to join in a groundwater model at the same
time, which is cost effective. This
cooperative modeling benefits the SFWMD with reviewers who can hopefully
expedite this process because they do not have to review three separate
models. We already transmitted our files
for the calibrated model to them. When
they review it they will look through every aspect of it. They go through all of the data we have given
them and rerun the model themselves to look at our conclusions.
Mr. Skehan stated one of the
comments they had in the meeting we had a week ago was they were very happy to
see this cooperative effort taking place; otherwise, as Mr. Bulman mentioned,
it was going to be three separate entities doing this modeling effort. The modeling effort gets to be a complex
effort.
Mr. Bulman stated what drove the
model for this were basically population growth projections going out 20
years. These are based on the data from
Broward County. If you look, most of the
population growth is moderate for CSID, NSID and the City of Coral
Springs. This is translated to
allocation projections, which in the middle line for CSID the current
allocation is 5.02 million gallons per day.
The projected demand is 5.51 million gallons. The deficit is .49 million gallons per
day. That is the additional increase
CSID will be requesting for 20 years out.
This includes the nano plant. The
City of Coral Springs is looking for an additional 1.19 million gallons per
day. NSID is similarly looking for an
additional 1.19 million gallons per day.
Something to note, which is relevant to the results we see later on, is
if you look at the current allocation for NSID, it is 4.55 million gallons. In comparison the increase they are looking
for is significantly greater, proportionally, than both CSID and the City of
Coral Springs.
The model was constructed with
boundaries at the Hillsborough Canal, the L-36 and the C-14. Individual canals were modeled inside the
basin as well as rainfall, hydraulic transmissivity, storativity and all the
parameters which contribute to this. We used a three layer model for the
Biscayne Aquifer. Below the Biscayne
Aquifer is the Hawthorn Formation, which is essentially 800 feet of clay which
separates the Biscayne Aquifer freshwater from the Floridan Aquifer System
below it. We were only concerned with
the Biscayne Aquifer in this model.
The hydraulic parameters we used
were based on the SFWMD models, which should also help in our review process
because we are using their parameters as our base for calibration. Calibration is the comparison of the model
data to actual data from observation wells throughout the area. We used USGS wells throughout this area,
looked at the water level trends over an 18 month period and compared them to
the simulated waters in the model. If
you look at the elevations, this is simulated, so this is what the model is
giving us and this is the observed water level over an 18 month period. What you want to see is a one to one
correlation. This shows a very strong
correlation between what the model can predict and what we are observing in
real life, which allows you to do forward predictions in the model.
I am providing only one example of a
particular well. This is water elevation
in the ground and this timeframe is from July of 2006 up to December of
2007. The model values for water level
elevation are in grey or light brown.
The dark blue is the observed actual values from wells in the area. What you want to see is they track each other
very closely. This is only two feet
here. You can see the model values and
the observed values in real life are close to each other. It is really an excellent calibration. The red line shows the difference and it is
plotted on this scale. Here is zero and
provided it is within plus or minus one foot, it is acceptable to the
SFWMD. We had 96% agreement between our
model and observed data. That was very
good for moving forward.
Mr. Fennell asked how does a basic
model work? Are you predicting
rainfall? Are you predicting the height
of the water?
Mr. Bulman responded no. We actually input rainfall. We input everything except for the water
level elevations. We tell it how much
rainfall it has per month. During the
calibrated model we take real precipitation data. Then we take into account evapotranspiration
runoff and take factor of that which seeps into the groundwater system. When we are doing a predictive model the
SFWMD has a rule where you have to do 12 months of drought. You then take your average precipitation for
this area and say it is 80% of an average year; that is your drought prediction
for your predictive model. You look at
drought. You look at variable pumping
rates. You take your irrigation water
users into account. All of it goes into
the model and the output is simply the changes in water level elevation.
Mr. Fennell state that takes into
account how much we actually pump per month so your inputs would be how much we
actually pumped, how much rain fell, then you would have what we actually had
for water level and then you would add what your prediction is.
Mr. Bulman stated yes. I actually met with the manager of the
control districts and got the actual stage data for all the canals in this
are. You can accurately integrate the
canal system and your recharge from CSID and NSID. You can incorporate it all into a model and
then you calibrate it. You do that
numerically. It takes the most time in a
model process. You allow it to run
through iterations. If you increase your
precipitation a tiny bit, lower it a little bit, change your hydraulic
parameters, plus or minus 5%, can you increase that match? Can you improve the match between your model
and the actual data?
Mr. Fennell stated okay. We obviously have the capability to pump out
water. Does this really have a big
effect or not?
Mr. Bulman responded it does.
Mr. Fennell asked can we decide to
store water and make those lines go up or down, or not?
Mr. Bulman responded sure, but if
you still have the same demand for raw water, you are going to end up pumping
more out of a given day; even if you turn off wells on another day.
Mr. Hanks stated I think Mr. Fennell
is referring to pumping the stormwater pumps out into the C-14 as opposed to
raw water withdrawals pumping out of the groundwater.
Mr. Fennell stated yes. I do not think our actual water usage
influences that at all. I would think
pumping out of the canals influences that water level. Our usage is so small. What do we have, a five mile square area?
Mr. Bulman responded right.
Mr. Fennell asked what do we have a
trillion gallons of water or something like that? It has to be a huge number.
Mr. Bulman asked in the canal
system?
Mr. Fennell responded yes.
Mr. Bulman stated I am sure.
Mr. Fennell stated the actual amount
of water we use for domestic uses is insignificant. I think you already sad it is in the rounding
area.
Mr. Bulman stated the model can
handle any amount of error. It can go
out to ten to the minus fifth, but in real life it is impossible to
measure. What you are saying is
correct. Any changes in the canal system
here, adding water or removing water, is going to affect the ability of the
groundwater to replenish itself. This is
something we will definitely want to talk about with the District and we
already brought it up preliminarily. Can
we retain more water to offset the additional pumping?
Mr. Fennell asked if I retain a half
million gallons more per day, will that offset it?
Mr. Bulman responded I do not think
it would be a one to one offset.
Mr. Fennell stated that is all they
are requiring and it cannot be more than a quarter of an inch across our canals
total.
Mr. Bulman stated unfortunately
there is a complex relationship between the water on the sides of the canal the
groundwater system, but we can model it now.
We can calibrate a model. The
other part of it is we do not have to offset a full half million gallons a day. We only have to offset what is being
withdrawn additionally from those regional canals. What you are taking out of the local canals
may be a good place to get an offset, but you only have to offset that
additional impact to the regional canals.
Mr. Hanks stated if we were to have
a waterproof boundary between us and the regional canals, we could lower our
water independently. Whatever we do
independently in our District is one thing.
It is the impact of what draws down on the C-14, L-36 and Hillsborough
Canal. That is what we have to
compensate because that is water which is no longer available for someone else
to use. Am I understanding this?
Mr. Bulman responded you are
absolutely right.
Mr. Fennell stated so we are in more
control of our fate than I thought.
Mr. Bulman stated I think you
are. The problem with the numeric model
is it is a water table. If you lower it
here, it is going to find its level. The
impact is going to move outwards to those canal boundaries. Unless you have zero additional pumpage, you
will impact the regional canals.
Mr. Fennell asked how fast does the
water actually move? If I sealed up all
the canals and do not pump anything and they go up two feet, how fast will the
water flow out through the coral and then find its own level?
Mr. Bulman responded in
transmissivities, hydraulic conductivities and formations in the Biscayne
Aquifer can be 2,000 to 5,000 feet per day.
Mr. Fennell asked the water moves
that fast?
Mr. Bulman responded easily. These are low compared to what you will get
on the east coast or in Miami Dade. They
go up to 100,000 feet plus.0
Mr. Skehan stated 100,000 to 200,000
feet.
Mr. Fennel asked are you saying if I
put a molecule of water here it will move 200,000 feet in a day?
Mr. Skehan responded depending on
the formation. The formation in this
particular area and Southeast Florida is of such a nature that it allows it to
happen because of the unconsolidated sands and the limestone formation If you look at a piece of reef and visualize
coral rock and the permeability through
it, that is what we have in so much of this area. When you look at the beach you will see shell
beds that are coming out of the sand.
Those shell beds are very prominent in this area of Broward County also. That is how quickly water can move through
that. As quickly as you can pour water
on a sponge, the water will disappear.
Mr. Fennell stated or go down, but
you are also saying it is moving sideways.
Mr. Bulman stated to answer your
question in terms of how you get that rate, you multiply the hydraulic
conductivity times your gradient. If you
have an eight foot water elevation here and you have a water elevation here at
two feet above sea level, then you have a gradient which is going to go in this
direction. You multiply that gradient
times your hydraulic conductivity to get what is going to be moved.
Mr. Skehan stated the driving head
is the difference between the elevation here and the elevation over here. It has the potential because of the nature of
the material.
Mr. Bulman stated what you would see
is lower water elevations here in the vicinity of the well fields and higher
elevations along your canals; therefore, the water would flow from your canals
or through the base of your canals with a seepage factor; going through those
sediments into that aquifer and then in the direction of your well fields. That water does not actually need to reach
your well field. It can take quite a
while. It can enter the regional
groundwater system, but it is your pumping that is inducing that seepage from
the canal. That is essentially what the
model is looking at.
Mr. Fennell stated you may not have
been around, but about three or four years ago we had a drycleaner who dumped a
bunch of chemicals out the back door. We
had a real scare with the chemical plume encroaching onto our wellfields, which
we are only 1,000 feet away or so. It
was not moving anywhere near that speed.
We had monitoring wells out there.
It was going much slower. We are
talking 30 feet or 40 feet. It was not
going very far.
Mr. Bulman stated it could be you
had a lower gradient given the distance; also, whether it is conservative or
non conservative in how it moves to the aquifer. It does not seem unreasonable.
Mr. Fennell stated what was most in
danger was the elementary school out here.
They were using a sprinkler system from the ground. Plus, there was a canal back there. My point is it did not move quickly.
Mr. Hanks asked okay Mr. Bulman,
what do you have for us?
Mr. Bulman responded this is where
we are currently. I ran the model two
ways. I ran it with all the utilities
and this is what we presented to the SFWMD.
At the meeting they requested we run each utility independently and I
have done that as well. Amazingly, they
agree. The sum of the parts equals the
whole. This is the impact to regional
canals by running all the utilities together; NSID, CSID and the City of Coral
Springs. Per day, the additional withdrawals
from the canal are 36,220 gallons. The
model can give you accurates like that with no problem. Can you actually go out and measure
this? Never, but the model can give us
this based on the calibration results we see.
The question then becomes, which of the utilities are withdrawing what
fraction of this water? What it
essentially shows is of the 36,220 gallons per day NSID is responsible for the
additional withdrawal of 24,300 and CSID for only 2,480 gallons per day.
Mr. Fennell asked is this looking
out for the new withdrawal we want in 20 years?
Mr. Bulman responded in 2020.
Mr. Fennell stated so we are saying
this is the amount of water we need to keep our city viable and this is what we
need per day.
Mr. Bulman stated as a result of the
additional pumpage of your requested increase this is the additional withdrawal
from those canals. No matter how small
it is, we used the analogy of a swimming pool when we were meeting with the
SFWMD.
Mr. Cassel stated they did not care.
Mr. Bulman stated it does not
matter.
Mr. Hanks asked how do we offset
this?
Mr. Skehan responded that is part of
the answer we will have to come up with and evolve. One of the things is this impact hits as soon
as this new plant comes on. We have some
losses in the new plant, which were not there before.
Mr. Hanks asked are you referring to
the wasted water where the lime runs at about 4%, this may be 10% to 20%? What are we looking at?
Mr. Skehan responded it is 15%; somewhere
in that range.
Mr. Bulman stated for projection
purposes we use 13%.
Mr. Hanks stated so we are looking
at three times the wasted water which we are not able to make use of.
Mr. Bulman stated as a result of
these model results we revised a memorandum per the SFWMD’s verbal comments at
the meeting. It included running each of
the utilities independently. Something
else they asked for was seasonal pumpage.
Mr. Fennell, you asked if you take into account pumping at different
times. They look at it on a season
basis. Looking at historical data for
all three utilities, we look at the average pumpage for each month of the year
and how it compares to the average across the whole year. We apply a factor for each month of the
year. For example; in January you
typically pump more than your average and in your wet season, July, you are
going to pump less than your average per month.
We had to take this into account in the model according to their
comments at the last meeting. This is
new, but when they bring things like that up we want to work with them and show
them the results we have from this one calibrated model
We are trying to expedite the
review. We had a meeting where we gave
them a presentation. It was a little bit
more technical than this presentation.
The model files for the calibration period were sent to them already so
they can start working through it. They
have about 30 days to make a review. Given
the complexity of this model and the calibration, it could take them a little
bit longer. Also, the groundwater model
is a tool developed specifically for CSID, the City of Coral Springs and
NSID. It is just that; just a tool. The request for additional information from
SFWMD is expected due to the complexity of the model. This is not a regional model they developed
and used before. This is something
specifically developed with the local canals and the local canal stages for
these three utilities.
Mr. Fennell asked do they have a
comparable model?
Mr. Bulman responded yes. A lot of the parameters we used where from
the lower east coast sub-regional model.
That model does not have the details for the water control districts and
the internal canals you see here.
Mr. Fennell asked do they have a
model which predicts the height of the canals during occurrences such as
hurricanes?
Mr. Bulman responded no.
Mr. Fennell stated we had two
problems. One was getting our normal
water and the second one was we did not want to flood our houses. The other model we have is to make sure the
canals do not flood, which is part of what you have here. They did not have any good data they would
share with us.
Mr. Bulman stated when I started
developing this model I went to Mr. Peters, he is the senior modeler in our
office, and said the model was flooded.
I realized it was all based on the canals here. The more intricate the canals, the better the
model water elevations came down. I
thought maybe that was the reason the canals were built here to begin with; to
avoid flooding.
Mr. Hanks asked what sort of
techniques do we have available to offset those additional withdrawals? What are we faced with?
Mr. Bulman responded conservation
and water reuse.
Mr. Hanks stated if we conserve, we
are not looking at conserving just the 2,000 gallons per day because that
conservation would occur on a decrease that we would be pumping here.
Mr. Bulman stated I would present
that as an offset because alternatively what you are saying is you are simply
reducing your allocation. If your
conservation efforts draw you back from a half a million gallons per day to a
quarter million gallons per day, your proportional impact on the regional
canals…
Mr. Hanks stated is cut in half,
perhaps.
Mr. Bulman stated maybe, maybe
not. In order to get back to zero you
have to take your allocation request to zero.
Mr. Hyche stated we are currently in
a program with NatureScape, which does irrigation conservation. Over the last two years, according to Broward
County’s numbers, the District has saved 7.7 million gallons of water. It is not much.
Mr. Hanks stated there are other
techniques. You can take over a water
use permit from a golf course, let us say Eagle Trace, and in exchange you
provide them with treated wastewater for reclaimed irrigation and use their
allocation to increase your allowable pumpage.
Mr. Skehan stated part of what is
required to be able to do something like that, that was one of the topics we
discussed, is like the chicken and the egg to see which came first. On the SFWMD side of things, we questioned
them as to why they do not have requirements for golf courses to use reuse
water. They are saying they expect the
utilities and municipalities to have ordinances and codes in place requiring
golf courses to use reuse water if it becomes available.
Mr. Hanks stated it may be something
we need to coordinate with the city to ensure we have a customer down the road
if we go the route of reuse as opposed to water conservation. Just on the back of the envelope; that 7
million gallons per day for round numbers, we are talking 10,000 units here in
the District. Each unit has to save 50 gallons
per day. Most of the houses are dealing
with pre 1990 houses so who knows how many gallons each one of those toilets flushes. We might very well be able to implement a
solution buying toilets with low flow mechanisms. Here we have our reduction and we avoid
having to go with reuse at this time.
Mr. Daly stated the City of Tamarac
has a program. We just received an email
asking why NSID, I am sure they also meant CSID, is not on a rebate type of
program like Tamarac is. I am going to
investigate it tomorrow to find out what it is.
Mr. Hanks stated Miami Dade also has
a very aggressive program.
Mr. Fennell stated but 36,000 is
immeasurable.
Mr. Bulman stated in the real world
it is totally immeasurable. This may not
be the final calibrated model we arrive at with SFWMD. There could be iterations in which they want
us to change one parameter or another.
That could change this number, but once we arrive at that number you can
measure it down to the gallon numerically.
Mr. Fennell asked but if we decide
just to hold another inch of rainwater in our canals, are we not talking
millions of gallons?
Mr. Bulman responded in the canals
yes. The question then is if this
additional stage provides enough water to the aquifer.
Mr. Hanks stated it would be another
opportunity to offset. We could increase
the stages in our canals. We could
excavate additional water bodies or some other means of providing additional
water storage. It is another tool. We know there is an issue and we have many
tools we can make use of to solve this.
Mr. Bulman stated some of those we
could model. We could easily model what
happens if we take a number of these canals and increase these stages.
Mr. Skehan stated we specifically
mentioned the City of Coral Springs is impacted by the SWCD. They do not use all of their allocation. They are the only district which has an
allocation that is able to withdraw water from the C-14 and if they are able to
withdraw more of this water, it means they have more water in the canal system
to raise the elevation and/or to hold the water during times of drought.
Mr. Fennell asked can they actually
back pump legally?
Mr. Skehan responded yes.
Mr. Hanks stated there are other
districts as well which are able to do that.
These are issues which are not solely for CSID. I sit on the Broward County Water Regional
Task Force and we are dealing with this on a countywide basis. We are looking into it from Hollywood and
Pembroke Pines all the way up to Hillsborough.
The solution is not just going to be what we do in this District, but it
is going to have impacts as to how we as a county, because we are short, Coral
Springs is short, Sunrise is short, we went down the list and everyone is
seeing the same problems we are facing. Mr.
Bulman, I have one other question. They
have been changing the population growth predictions. Is it really not applicable here because we
are assuming a basic flat line?
Mr. Bulman stated yes. It is very moderate across.
Mr. Hyche asked do you have the new
TAZ numbers?
Mr. Bulman we spoke about the
numbers or at least the most recent figures for CSID. We have late 2008 numbers for TAZ.
Mr. Hyche asked did they not come
out with the adjusted ones yet? I spoke
to Ms. Powell this afternoon and she said she would email me the new numbers.
Mr. Bulman responded it is the other
factor for the purposes of modeling and changing your numbers.
Mr. Cassel stated it is still an
impact and they want you to have zero impact.
Mr. Hyche stated whatever you pull
out is an impact and they want you to mitigate it.
Mr. Fennell asked is the argument in
the wrong spot?
Mr. Bulman responded I tend to think
it is. When you look at the discharges through
the Hillsborough Canal everyday, how can you talk about 2,000 gallons a day?
Mr. Fennell responded right. It is almost like someone picked a point, but
the point is irrelevant or moot. It
looks to me like your program says that.
This is why I am wondering whether or not they actually have a full
program which can tell them what their heights, canal usage and all those kinds
of things are or if someone is just holding on to some kind of rule that does
not pertain.
Mr. Hanks stated to us it may not
pertain much, but when you start going further east into Pompano Beach where
you have well fields which are going to be affected by saltwater intrusion,
then the amount of water you pump out of the Biscayne Aquifer is less water
available to keep the saltwater out. If
Broward County does not keep the saltwater out, you are going to start losing
wells.
Mr. Fennell asked but is that the
real issue? Is it really the draw out of
the water people are using or is it how much water we are shipping out to the
C-14 canal on a daily basis, which is really influencing the well fields?
Mr. Hanks responded you have other
issues on that as well. When you start
restricting your discharges through an estuary you are going to be affecting
the solidity of the estuary and what creatures have become established in the
area. What are the pollutant motives? Are you going to stagnate the water and not
have it flush?
Mr. Hyche responded it is a tough
balance environmentally and hydraulically.
Mr. Bulman stated I agree with the
canal issue. We asked them specifically
about it. We asked them about SWCD. They replied the same regional water
availability rule goes for direct withdrawals from the canals. They requested an increase over their
existing allocation or their base case and it is different governing rules for
direct withdrawal, but then they would also have to show an offset.
Mr. Hanks asked are you saying SWCD is
also in a bit of a fix because they do not have the ability to bring anything
in to help recharge the Coral Springs well fields?
Mr. Bulman responded it depends what
their base condition is. I know they
calculate it differently for direct withdrawals. I do not know the specifics.
Mr. Hyche stated they hold them to
whatever withdrawals they have been using historically.
Mr. Cassel stated it is not the best
scenario, but you can get penalized by conserving and not using your full
allocation.
Mr. Fennell asked who is keeping
track of all of this?
Mr. Bulman responded SFWMD.
Mr. Fennell asked do they actually
keep track of how much water we use per day?
Mr. Hyche responded yes. We report it to them.
Mr. Hanks stated it is a condition
of our water use permit.
Mr. Bulman stated they will verify
the numbers we sent them in the model.
They will not take it for granted.
Mr. Fennell asked if they do not
have a model, how do they verify it?
Mr. Bulman responded we send them
the actual component files, which number probably 20.
Mr. Fennell asked do you send them
the program too?
Mr. Bulman responded no. They run their own program, but you have a
recharge and a river for each layer of the model. They will look at the data, the pumpage and
decide if it agrees with what they have on record.
Mr. Skehan stated once they go
through their own internal evaluation they may not agree with some of the
parameters we have assumed for these model runs. They will have expectations to rerun the
model using their parameters.
Mr. Fennell stated I guess I am
confused. They have this program which
cannot predict canal height, but it is somehow predicting canal usage and flow.
Mr. Bulman stated it can predict
impacts.
Mr. Hanks stated if I can bring in
an analogy here, there are lots of different drainage programs you have. Some of them will come out with drainage
reports that give you detailed information on a basin by basin level. There is another program which will give you an
overall picture on three pages. At the
end of the day your overall picture does not vary much from your very detailed
analysis, but you cannot pull out the specific information from the big picture
analysis. This is just my guess as to
how they have a program, but they are not able to refine it as much.
Mr. Bulman stated that is part of
it. On a regional level they represent
canals in cells. Their cell dimension on
a regional model is 704 feet by 704 feet.
It is so coarse and they assign properties to it which may vary from one
cell to the next. All they are really
looking at is a regional view of water in and out of that canal to calibrate to
the observed water level data. It is
just one part of it, one tool.
Mr. Hanks stated otherwise, their
program would be so cumbersome they would probably run it until tomorrow.
Mr. Bulman stated it took us weeks
to calibrate this area.
Mr. Hanks stated thank you Mr.
Bulman.
Mr. Fennell asked will we get a
written report of this?
Mr. Bulman responded yes.
SEVENTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval of Financials and
Check Registers
·
Summary
of Cash Transactions
·
Projected
Cash Flows – Operating
·
Projected
Cash Flows - CIP
Mr. Fennell stated let us jump right
to the financials and check registers.
Are there any questions on this?
Mr. Hanks responded no.
Mr. Fennell asked is there a motion
to approve?
On MOTION by Ms. Zich seconded by
Mr. Fennell with all in favor the financials and check registers were approved
for February 2009.
Mr. Fennell stated we are doing okay
as far as water flowing in and out from the business standpoint. I assume we are pretty accurate now. We are holding our cost well to. That is great.
EIGHTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Supervisors’ Requests
and Audience Comments
Mr.
Hanks stated Mr. Fennell, I do not know if you recall, but you are an alternate
on the Water Regional Task Force for Broward County. You do not have to attend, but you are
welcomed to attend at any point.
Mr. Fennell asked is there another
meeting?
Mr. Hanks responded they are usually
the first Friday of the month. The
meetings are at the county Government Center from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. You get a flavor of what is going on in terms
of the county level. Ms. Zich, you are
welcomed to attend as a member of the audience.
NINTH
ORDER OF BUSINESS Adjournment
There being no further
business,
On MOTION by Mr. Hanks seconded
by Ms. Zich with all in favor the meeting was adjourned.
Glen Hanks
Robert
D. Fennell
Secretary President