Council Minutes

Minutes of Grand Forks City Council/Committee of the Whole
Monday, November 26 2007 - 5:30 p.m.___________________

The City Council met as the Committee of the Whole on Monday, November 26, 2007 at 5:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers in City Hall with Mayor Brown presiding. Present at roll call were Council Members Brooks, McNamara, Glassheim, Gershman, Christensen (teleconference), Kreun - 6; absent: Council Member Bakken - 1.

Mayor Brown commented on events during the past week and upcoming events:
Congratulations to UND football for a great season and sorry it couldn't go on for a few more weeks; great program and will be there to support it and all other programs as move on to the next phase.
That the Near Northside Neighborhood Steering Group has organized a holiday party for this Saturday, December 1, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. and hopes the residents of the area have a chance to stop by Wilder gym.
That on Saturday Grand Forks bid farewell to Darrel Adams who has been a visionary in our community and he will be sorely missed.
That Grand Forks Green3 Resource Committee will meet this Thursday at 6:00 p.m. in Room A101 in City Hall, anyone willing to lend their suggestions is welcome.

2.1 Change Order #2 for Project No. 6072, 2007 Concrete Street Repairs.
There were no comments.

2.2 Design, Bidding and Construction Administration Engineering Service Agreement for Project No. 6120, Lift Station 32 Rehabilitation.__________________________
There were no comments.

2.3 Bids for Project No. 6174.3, District No. 458, Rehabilitate Storm Pump Stations Nos.
182 and 188 (Underground Bid Package).___________________________________
Council Member Kreun reported to give Council Members Gershman and Bakken heads up that information from the bids will be sent out to the homeowners late this week or early next week.

2.4 Change Order No. 4 for Project Nos. 6133 and 6134, District No. 93, overlay Sunbeam Addn. east of Belmont Road and overlay 62nd Ave.S. from Columbia Road to Washington Street and Belmont Road from 62nd Ave.S. to Adams Drive.______________________________________________________________
There were no comments.

2.5 Grand Forks Waste Management Plan.
Todd Feland, director of public works, reported they have been working on a wastewater
master planning and also wastewater treatment, also solid waste and some integrated waste management plans, and would like to review those concept plans, that he would do portion of the presentation, also Judel Buls and Steve Burian from Advanced Engineering who would be doing the Collection Concept Plan and Wastewater Treatment portion, finally discussion on integrated waste management plan and update on the landfill siting plan. He also thanked Don Tucker, wastewater treatment supt. and Dave Kresel, wastewater/stormwater collection supt. and Tom Hansen, WFW, who has worked on the collection system.

Mr. Feland stated this is a living document and that with any planning document it changes, that meetings re. landfill siting process, people want concrete answers but is a planning level document subject to change and know that it is going to change over time. He stated there are things in the wastewater collection that actual projects that they are going forward on, that as go through document hear about collection and treatment and solid waste, will hear three different areas of projects that they are working on: 1) aging infrastructure, 2) future capacity and developmental costs, and 3) regulatory (solid waste landfill and wastewater treatment plant primarily) and see those 3 issues in depth in this presentation. He stated they would also discuss an update on the service study re. American Crystal Sugar in East Grand Forks and have better information, and update on the combined waste stream management study that combines a lot of wastewater, waster and solid waste issues and give an update. He stated when talking about projects still in the planning level are significant projects and if look at the wastewater treatment plant talking $50 to $70 million and the forcemain expansion projects are $10 to $13 million, significant major capital investments and those are beyond the 5 year planning period and those projects require further study but in the 20 year planning horizon.

Ms. Buls reviewed the Wastewater Collection System Master Plan which was stated in 2005, and that Advanced Engineer and WFW looked at evaluation of the existing system in terms of condition and capacity, modeling the system, rehabilitation of the system, and operation and maintenance of the system. She noted from rehabilitation perspective they looked at the pump stations and gravity sewers and both of these systems are in good condition and that is result of significant work done during the flood recovery effort and were able to develop some pretty comprehensive annual rehab. budgets for those systems. She noted that the forcemain system was a system they weren't able to have a lot of information on because the system has never been inspected and condition is relatively unknown, but that there have been some failures in that pipeline in the past which is cause for concern, some areas of the pipeline are over 50 years old and constructed out of a pipeline material that is susceptible to gas corrosion; and as part of the master plan recommended that they do a forcemain inspection project which should take place in 2008/09, and can then look at the rehab budget they need for the forcemain system and determine whether or not what set forth in the master plan is appropriate. Results of the inspection project should help determine whether or not need to do additional inspection in other areas of the system that now rank as a lower priority. She stated to summarize for the Wastewater Collection System they have some anticipated study efforts they are going to complete in 2008 planning efforts, one is west side subsystem evaluation and this study will help to determine whether or not the pump stations they have proposed in that area will actually will serve that system sufficiently; are proposing a PCCP forcemain assessment to help identify the technologies that will help assess the condition of that forcemain; and a hydraulic model calibration, used a hydraulic model in the master planning process and would like to go back and verify some of those assumptions by comparing the information with the actual system against what they did for modeling purpose and use that to help better refine the timelines and the need for some of the forcemain projects they are proposing. She noted if they complete those three study efforts they should be able to come back on these ranges of cost and refine those accordingly so they can move those into the final column of identified improvements along with the ongoing rehabilitation budgets they have set forth in the Master Plan.

Steve Burian reviewed the Wastewater Treatment Plan; that the City has a mechanical wastewater treatment plan and there are two streams they need to contend with, one is liquid side and one is the solid side. He stated that critical operational issues are being addressed as part of the interim bio-solids management project, other issues (i.e., fats/oils/and grease- FOG) buildup and surge flow control still remain; infrastructure will be necessary in the future to assess and address the potential for biosolids management, direct discharge, FOG handling, and decommissioning a portion of the City's lagoon system.

When the new mechanical plant was completed it was recognized that there was some additional work that was going to be needed to be done in the city of Grand Forks, long term, both on the liquid side ands the solid side and goal of the concept plan was to review current process and consider some of the long term challenges that were out there and put together a concept in cost for what it may cost to deal with those things. Some of the specifics, that in addition to the landfill posing a problem out there, have heard about challenges of lagoons, birds, etc,. that relate to the FAA and that a partial decommissioning of the lagoon system is going to be required and to determine the associated cost. One of the concepts ahead of us is regulatory compliance for the wastewater treatment system, that on 5-year revolving permit commitment window and possibly the next one after that in terms of permit compliance, expecting 3 different challenges, one is FOG, and that is one of the things they need to address; the plant was constructed with the idea
to go with direct discharge

He stated they were prepared to present a proposal for additional study efforts, however, they realized there was miscommunication between American Crystal Sugar and the city of Grand Forks in the nature of Crystal Sugars wastes and the ability of Grand Forks to handle some of those things and in the last couple weeks have had a series of meetings with Crystal Sugar to try to gain a better understanding of how they are treating their wastewater at their facility, and how that might impact us, and so only providing a quick update that we are retooling our proposal and that will go through the normal channels so no specifics to present this evening re. that topic.

NOTE: Mayor Brown reported he had an announcement - the Grand Forks County Sheriff's Department has issued a bulletin stating "VISIBILITY IS LOW TO ZERO THROUGHOUT THE COUNTY, ROADS ARE VERY SLIPPERY DUE TO BLOWING SNOW AND ICE, CONDITIONS MAY QUICKLY DETERIORIATE AND DRIVERS ARE URGED TO USE EXTREME CAUTION". He stated that conditions are rapidly deteriorating in the County, and department heads to use their judgment, safety is paramount, and would excuse everybody but Todd Feland.

Mr. Feland stated the landfill and the immediate need for the City of Grand Forks, that they are working hard on the landfill solution and landfill provides solution for all the things that we are doing, no one technology out there that we can eliminate solid waste at this time; that the City should feel good about what we are doing re. recycling, diversion, have a curbside recycling program, have drop sites for recycling, we compost our yard waste, etc. and next step is to look at incentives for people to recycle, give people options for the size of the container they have, now everyone has 90 gal. container; have gone to co-mingled recycling which is a positive step, and have a side load container similar to a solid waste container and would promote more recycling.
increasing diversion of solid waste stream.

Council Member Gershman asked when could they bring a proposal to us on the size of the containers, very helpful to have separate container that could be wheeled. Mr. Feland stated they are within the landfill siting process into 2008-09 and have a landfill in the fall of 2009; our current recycling agreement goes to the end of 2008 and would like to work on these incewntives and when rebid it out fo in different form and fashion, come back with volume based system with increased recycling incentive. The landfill component is important component finanancially for all these things to work, goal in 2009 go to this system, both pay as you throw and better recycling commingled system and rather than voluntary system, have more of a penalty system where everybody has to do it, currently charge on per residential unit basis, whether you use the system or not and have not gone to system to mandate. Surveys show recycling from 20 to 40%.
Goal is to continue to divert as much as possible. He stated what they are asking tonight is that they approve both concept plans of collection system and wastewater, and engage interest on consecutive user study. He stated they did have to make a repayment to FEMA re. some wastewater and things that were no flood related, a little over $4 million, that over the past few years haven't had rate increased and tried to minimize the cost impacts to citizens, and part of the goal is as pay off that $4 million (loan from the water utility and paying that back over time), and part of the goal is as we pay that off over the next several years, is that we reinvest in this utility, the wastewater collection system, and take that money back that we haven't been reinvesting and then reinvest that money into future needs.

He stated the landfill siting - that we received letter on Friday from USDA Wildlife Service, and it provides some discussion on the northend sites as they had sent some information to review the northend sites - that Falconer 18 and Rye Twp. 13 and these are the two sections to consecrate on, Falconer 18 is outside the line showing Airport Authority Master Plan and inside they promote no activity that would increase bird activity i.e., solid waste landfill - that Falconer 18 is outside of that area but is inside the 5-mile FAA Advisory Rule; Rye Twp. under certain conditions/risk we can consider Falconer 18 and the eastern half of Rye 13 can be under consideration; that they will be reviewing that letter and including those issues as part of the design/mitigation, that as try to finish the pre-applications from the Dept. of Health in the next week or so for review and include that letter as part of the analysis as they continue to look on the Southend - Brenna 36, Merrifield Road and Walle Twp. 6, 7 and 18. One of the hurdles on the northend is whether we were going to be precluded from looking at development up north and at this point can still keep Falconer 18 and eastern half of 13 in Rye as part of our calculation.

He thanked committee chair, Mr. Kreun and Service/Safety Committee and members Mr. McNamara and Mr. Bakken and to the rest of the council; ands thanked Mayor for allowing us to work in an environment that we can be creative and appreciate that.

There were a number of questions by the council members.

Council Member Glassheim asked if they could continue with the other studies while still doing the landfill and those results impact what going to buy and location. Mr. Feland stated the sites are smaller sites and have much smaller landfill footprint and the more they divert in the future, whether through co-composting, etc., because footprint much smaller than originally envisioned.

INFORMATION ITEMS

3.1 Lake Agassiz Water Authority letter on the Keystone Pipeline.
Council Member Kreun


MAYOR AND COUNCIL COMMENTS

1) Council Member McNamara complimented Todd Feland and staff at public works, that committee has had two meetings re. waste management, one north of town and one south of town re. management plan, that Todd takes tremendous patience and stays as long as people want to talk, and complimented Todd on his professionalism and patience.

ADJOURN

It was moved by Council Member Gershman and seconded by Council Member Brooks that we adjourn. Carried 6 votes affirmative.

Respectfully submitted,



John M. Schmisek
City Auditor