OFFICIAL MINUTES

  REGULAR MEETING

HAYDEN AREA REGIONAL SEWER BOARD

February 21, 2008

 

The regular meeting of the Hayden Area Regional Sewer Board was held on February 21, 2008, in the City of Hayden Council Chambers at 8930 N. Government Way, Hayden, ID.

 

Present:           Tom DePew, Gerry House, Ron McIntire, Jay Townsend    

 

Absent:            Richard Piazza                       

 

Also Present:   Ken Windram, Hayden Area Regional Sewer Board-Project Manager; Stephanie Oliver, Hayden Area Regional Sewer Board- Secretary; Jim Kimball, J-U-B Engineering; Paul Klatt, J-U-B Engineering; Larry Comer, Welch, Comer and Associates

                       

The meeting was called to order by Ron McIntire, Chairman at 3:00 p.m. 

 

It was moved by Gerry House, and seconded by Jay Townsend, to accept the agenda with the following Additions: add #2-A January 22, 2008 ER Resolution Workshop, add #13-A NPDES Permit, add #15-A Rathdrum Prairie-Spokane River Meeting, and add #15-B Ammonia-Pretreatment.  Motion Carried.

 

It was moved by Jay Townsend, and seconded by Tom DePew, to approve the minutes of the January 17, 2008 regular meeting and the January 22, 2008 ER Resolution Workshop Meeting as written. Motion carried. 

 

It was moved by Tom DePew, and seconded by Jay Townsend, to approve the January Financial Reports (Construction and O & M). Motion Carried.

 

It was moved by Tom DePew, and seconded by Jay Townsend to pay our bills, including a Replacement Lab Refrigerator (Sears) $149.99 and Construction Draw 6 for TML totaling     $ 239,577.65 for Phase IIIC. Motion carried. 

 

Administrative Reports

 

Ken Windram gave his administrative report, which is attached hereto.      

                                   

Shirley Carter’s operations report is attached hereto.

           

Entity Reports

 

City of Hayden- no report

                                       

Hayden Lake Recreational Water and Sewer District- Gerry House talked about the report that his daughter did regarding the Phosphorus use in their house.  Gerry House also submitted a letter, which is attached hereto, regarding the districts response to the Rathdrum Prairie Acquifer-Spokane River Group Meeting that Gary Stevens from the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality is initiating.

 

Kootenai County- no report

 

Phase III Construction

 

Paul Klatt, J-U-B engineering, gave an update on the construction.  The project is still moving along ahead of schedule, by about a month.  The project is still running very smoothly, and they are waiting on major equipment at this time.  Ken Windram talked about the construction team( TML and J-U-B), and felt that the board was getting high quality work for their money.

 

Outfall Feasibility Study

 

Larry Comer, Welch, Comer and Associates, submitted the final report for review, attached hereto. Larry Comer then gave a brief summary of the enclosed data, with an estimated project cost of 3.8 million dollars for a flow of over 5.0 mgd. Construction time period would be about 2 years from the time of approval to start. 

 

Gerry House has talked with Patty Shea, from Avista about the use of our effluent in their facility.  Avista seems interested, yet the engineers would need to meet and discuss to see if this would be a possible option for the future.  Paul Klatt indicated that at least for the next 5 years-- Avista has a contract with Ko-Genetrics to supply power.

 

Larry Comer indicated that it would make sense to put the outfall construction into the long range facility use plan, the board agreed with this statement.

 

 

SEP FUND

 

Stephanie Oliver asked the board to allow this money to be moved into an interest bearing account.  After review and discussion, we could not find a written statement indicating that this money needed to stay in a non (or low) interest bearing account it just needed to be separated from our other funds.  The board agreed to allow this money to be placed in a higher interest bearing account.

 

ER Resolution

 

This has been postponed until March.

 

 

Airport Irrigation

 

Larry Comer gave a draft report regarding the airport irrigation feasibility study, which is attached hereto.  The key part of this is the acres available for irrigation (64 acres available for long term use), and due to other requirements we would need to use a sub surface drip irrigation.  This is a very expensive irrigation system with limited span on surface contact. It would cost approximately 2.5 million dollars to irrigated 64 acres.  The board would then incur O & M pumping and cropping costs on top of this.  It was the recommendation from Larry Comer, Welch Comer and Associated that the capital from the board would be put to better use in a more permanent less restrictive investment.

 

Jim Kimball arrived at 3:45 p.m.

 

 

RFQ Facility Long Range Plan-Financial Plan

 

Gerry House, Jay Townsend, and Ken Windram met to review the RFQ’s received by the board.  We received one submittal for the long range plan from J-U-B/Welch Comer, and two submittals for the financial plan from HDR and FCS.  It was moved by Gerry House, and seconded by Jay Townsend, that we move forward with contract negotiations on the Long Range Facility Use Plan with the parent group J-U-B, and hold interviews with HDR and FCS for the financial plan.  Motion Carried.

 

 

TMDL Collaboration Costs

 

Ken Windram discussed the bill ($ 13,692.81) that we received from the Spokane County Utilities Director, N. Bruce Rawls for the TMDL collaboration.  Jim Kimball spoke on this issue, and felt that we should put some funds into this collaboration so that we could benefit from the use attainability analysis.  It was moved by Gerry House, and seconded by Jay Townsend, that we pay a portion of the funds $ 4,906.69 since we are smaller than the other entities flow wise.  Motion Carried.

 

 

NDPES Permit Status

 

Jim Kimball presented the NDPES timeline that J-U-B has put together for our facility, see enclosed timeline.  Jim Kimball put into the timeline the construction issues that our plant is facing, the financial impact to the facility and how to pay for these upgrades, as well as the items needed to meet the standards for the permit compliance.  Jim Kimball felt that this diagram would help show in a glance what is happening with our facility.  The new phosphorus levels in the summer months are not readily attainable at this time (this is the new portion that we requested be added to the permit, in case we needed to discharge during the summer to the river); however, due to our current summer land application this is not an issue at this time.  The board requested that Jim Kimball ask EPA for our loads to be calculated off the 2.0 mgd flow plant that will be coming on line this summer versus our current 1.65 mgd flow.

 

 

Public Outreach

 

Ken Windram feels that we need to let people know who we are, and generate positive media about our facility.  Ken Windram talked about a possible mission statement being: “Treating Our Customers Water While Protecting the Aquifer”.  Ken discussed about how letting the community know about the service we provide would be beneficial to our facility and current permitting process, see enclosed example brochure from Hawaii.  The board felt that this would be a good idea, and that anything we could do would be beneficial to our facility. Gerry House felt that we need to do a proactive approach to the citizens of our area to realize how much the phosphorus from their homes affects the system, and our permit.

Ron McIntire feels that we need to talk with the Commissioners and possibly the companies that make dishwasher soap to try and get the phosphorus removed, similar to what they did 35 years ago with the laundry detergent.  Gerry House indicated that we should talk with the electric companies about sending a flier out in their bills.

 

 

Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer-Spokane River Meeting

 

Ken Windram presented the e-mail letter that Gary Stevens, Idaho Department of Environmental Quality sent, see enclosed letter.  The board determined that Ken Windram will attend on behalf of the Hayden Area Regional Sewer Board.

 

 

Ammonia-Pretreatment

 

Ken Windram talked about the current ammonia levels that we received in our pump station samplers, see enclosed data sheet.  Blue Water let us borrow some of their samplers, and we thank them for this.  The H-4 lift station at this time has twice the amount of Ammonia as the other lift stations.  The Hayden Area Regional Sewer Board staff plan to verify this data, then work their way back up the pipes to find the source.  The city has an ammonia limit in their ordinance, but at this time we have not found a limit in the county ordinance.

 

Other Business

 

Paul Klatt and Larry Comer let the board know about the Rathdrum Prairie Master Plan workshop/meetings coming up:

            Kootenai County Commissioners       February 27 at 6:00 p.m.

            Post Falls City                                     February 28 at 5:30 p.m.

            Hayden City                                       March 4 at 5:30 p.m.

            Rathdrum City                                                March 5 at 6:00 p.m.  

 

 

Moved to adjourn meeting by Gerry House, and seconded by Jay Townsend, at 4:35 p.m... Motion carried. 

 

 

 

 

Ron McIntire, Chairman                                 Stephanie Oliver, Secretary