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LFd 10152018 OPS 1 OPERATIONS COMMITTEE MEETING Monday, October 15, 2018 3:30 p.m. Conference Room 1st Floor Present: Richard Solbrig, Shannon Cotulla, John Thiel, Jim Jones, Heidi Baugh Public: None A meeting was held to discuss the following: TOPICS DISCUSSION 1. PUBLIC COMMENTS. None. 2. CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS a) Plant Emergency Generator Replacement (Cal Electro Inc.) • Site 1 Generator Building – The contractor is almost finished with the foundation work out there. Just the equipment pad left to install. • There were concerned about not being able to get block in time to be able to work through the winter. CEI was able to get a new supplier who could provide the block much sooner so the contractor will continue to work through the winter. They will construct the necessary protection in order for the block work to move forward. • Site 2 Breakpoint – Work at this location is all but complete and paved out. They have bollards to install and a couple ponding areas to work on. • The portable generators will be on site and set up before winter. • District crews are coordinating with CEI to work out snow removal plans for this winter. b) DVR Irrigation/ C Hydro (Thomas Haen Co) DVRIIP • Our alfalfa crop was cut a couple of weeks ago. Due to rain and delay by our contractor (Borsini) due to a fire at one of his properties, it has not been baled yet. When the alfalfa is dry enough they will bale it. We expect later this week. • We will be able to do this work ourselves in upcoming seasons, but would like to have an outside contractor do it for at least another season or two so that we have a little more training before taking this over. • Pivot rigs are being winterized for the year. • We are in power generation mode. c) Fallen Leaf Lake (District) • Crews are finished with our field work for the season. • Agreement with Fallen Leaf lake Fire Department was completed. d) Water Meters Phase 4 • Vinciguerra is demobilizing after a very successful season. They have installed over 1600 meters this season, about 140 over the original contract amount. Essentially no change orders on over $3.5M worth of work. • John reported that all of the paving installations are complete; they are working on a couple dozen punchlist items. e) Marlette Waterline (Thomas Haen Co) • Thomas Haen Company is finished with the waterline and fire hydrants work associated with this project. • We will be adding a change order for City drainage work that they will do in the next couple of weeks. • Contractor will install service connections next year for this project. f) 2018 Water and Sewer Systems Improvements (Thomas Haen Co) Hydrants and Force Main ByPass • Fire hydrant and main line valve work in Meyers is nearly complete. Just a couple hydrant left to go in. • On the bypasses, Thomas Haen Company has completed the work at Martin and Rose. We are now working on bypass stations on both sides of Hwy 50. Force main should be back in operation tomorrow (Tuesday 10/16). The new bypass forcemain is to be 2 installed across Hwy50 at Link Road over the next two weeks. • Another work item under this contract – we are extending 3 bays down in the lower shop area to accommodate the new camels that are too long to fit in the current garages. This was a little in-house design project John completed with our Part-time engineer. • Thomas Haen Company will be doing sewer line section from the bug station that down Apache that needs to be replaced. The quote we received from Thomas Haen to do this work was significantly less that it would have been to add it to the Propipe contract. • More of the Apache Street line has sags in it; we will design that repair/replacement work over the winter and consider that for reconstruction next year. g) Christmas Valley Tank Road • Our crews completed drainage work along this road this summer. GB Construction completed the paving work a couple weeks ago. Looks great up there. 3. PLANNING / DESIGN a) Water Projects – Prop 218 • Prop 218 – results presented at the last Board Meeting with 3 scenarios discussed for submittal to the rate consultant. We identified 24 projects pertaining to the fire flow waterline projects. John asked if there are any questions or suggestions on the presentation as we prepare for the Sewer 218. • Jim thinks the water side information has been very well presented; and feels the sewer side will be a little more complicated. • John suggested that we will present the sewer side as a workshop rather than at a Board meeting so we have more time to go through the details and flexibility on the questions and answers. The Sewer workshop will be post-election--November 15 is our rough estimate. b) Rocky Point Waterline • In-house design is almost done. Will bring this to the Board 11/15 for bid authorization. • We were contacted by the City about what we were planning to do so they could coordinate for paving efforts. This is the first time City staff has reached out to us in this type of cooperative effort. Our staff is working to minimize paving needs on the project. c) Groundwater Management Planning Groundwater Management Plan • Ivo called a SAG meeting last week to discuss the PCE Plume, and provide update and input regarding the change in the Basin’s prioritization ranking. • The state changed our basin ranking from Medium to Very Low, adding a new criterion for consideration. We are trying to find out how this all came about and what it means for us and our planning efforts. It seems we were reclassified due to a completely unilateral modification. We don’t know how this will affect us relative to grants, loans, etc. We also have no way to be able to predict how we might be categorized in the future either since the criteria seem to be able to be modified on a whim. South Y Plume Remediation Project: • Ivo continues his work with Kennedy/Jenks and DRI on the Fate and Transport model and setting up the alternatives for handling the PCE plume. • John discussed the three main alternative categories: 1) Treatment at well sites incluing Lukins 5 and Tahoe Keys 1 and 2; 2) Investigate and model new well sites, which includes modeling for location, depth, distance from and effect on plume; 3) installation of mid-plume treatment including in-situ oxidation with carbon treatment. • Richard reported that we presented a prioritized list of remedies/remediation that we are looking at the State to fund. This morning Shannon, Shelly and Richard met with Lahontan to discuss how things were going. First topic was the emergency response plan. State folks in Sacramento sent out order letters to all three local water companies to complete Maintenance and Operations plans. We felt this was a slap in the face and served no useful purpose. Local Lahontan staff offered to go with us to meet with the 3 State folks in Sacramento. d) Fallen Leaf Lake Sewer Improvements • Turner has been out doing some property research and is trying to locate existing easements in the field. We will see if we can work within the existing easements. • John is working with staff on the in-house design work which includes a new wet well at the main station, new pumps, electrical, and control equipment. Crews are planning to do this work out there early next year likely in tandem with a contractor. e) Collection System Assessment • Our crews have exceeded the number of pipes wanted for the 218 which was 10 percent of our system – about 660 pipes. They are over 700 at this time. They will go back to their normal TV truck schedule after this high productivity period. • Right now our hold up in on coding the video collected. This is being done by Sewer Knowledge. Expect to have about 500 pipes coded by the end of the month. They are at 377 pipes as of today. • By the end of the month we anticipate being able to compile the data, evaluate it, and work toward developing project areas based on the data. We will prioritize the data using crew knowledge of the problems. Of the 377 pipes we have looked at there are a few major projects. We will use the new priority list to whittle down the list of unrestrained projects. We have some concerns about the pipes full of water due to sags. We are unable to see much in these areas so the condition is still in question. • We are also going through the sewer list and asking preventative maintenance type questions, like, “what should be a pump replacement cycle”, “what can we do to extend the life of out collection system”, “what investment should we make on man holes”, etc. f) Big 5 Pump Stations • After the last project meeting, we are now awaiting the final report for the project alternatives evaluation. The main things coming out of the evaluation are the Tahoe Keys Sewer Pump Station improvements and the Upper Truckee Sewer Pump Station improvements. John expects to have these completed in a single design effort and possibly one multi-year construction package. He thinks this will be most cost efficient. Improvements at the other three stations are much less expensive and lower priority and will come as a second phase in later years. • Steve turned in a CME proposal that was added to the Board Agenda as an Addendum. The proposal is for design-level geotech engineering work out at the Tahoe Keys pump station that needs to be completed so we can start the design and get everything packaged together and submitted in a funding application by next June. • We expect to hear back from the funding source in 2020 so we can construct in 2021. • We are also turning in FEMA applications for generators. John is trying to keep this within our original budget and this funding would really help. g) DVR Improve ment Projects • John reported that we have some projects coming up at DVR next year--road repaving, inverted siphon improvements, and improvements to the ICR vault (faulty valve, 20’ deep located on the dam face). • We will also be doing a Diamond Ditch assessment to determine the urgency/schedule for a rehab plan. There are some very serious concerns with the condition of the concrete out there. 4. OTHER a) El Dorado County Water Agency Projects • We are nearing completion of the MOU. John is assembling our final list of multi-year projects to coincide with the MOU between the District and El Dorado County Water Agency. Their Board approved the MOU and will need to approve funding on an annual basis. John plans to bring this to our Board for approval soon, likely on the 1st or 15th of November. The MOU and multi-year project lists will help us better utilize agency funds for our outside design and system optimization projects including pressure management, water loss, and cathodic protection systems. 4 b) Sierra Blvd Project, City of South Lake Tahoe • City opened bids. Herback was the low bidder. White Rock second. • Bid was about $4.5 million. Our portion bid out at $360,000 which was below our estimate. City had left our bid item descriptions out of the bid, and also deleted the amount we had inserted for Unknown Conditions without discussing that with us. • There a few things we need to work out with the City and the contractor because of things they left out of the bid documents. John is confident we will work it out. We like the contractor and the bid price for our work is excellent. c) Caltrans Update • Caltrans is mostly complete, just finishing up some paving and working on signals. • Third year of this 3-year project is coming up next year. • They will also be working on the Meyers round-about and Echo Summit improvements next year. Echo will be a two-year project with a 14-day shutdown on Hwy50 in the second year. d) Fallen Leaf Lake Snow Removal • Shannon and Richard spoke with Sue Novasel who has agreed to arrange a meeting with the County Transportation staff to discuss the Fallen Leaf Lake Road snow removal issues. She has been told by her Transportation staff that all the snow removal equipment they have is too big and would tear up that road. In the County’s eyes the gates are closed in the winter and the road does not get plowed (they have turned their back on the private plowing over the past few years). Seems like a fairness issue since the residents have been assessed by and pay the county for this service, but have not received any benefit for it. • $60,000 a year is the cost we have been able to identify for contracting snow removal services. Jeremy continues to obtain additional estimates for the work. • District firmly believes this cost should not be borne by the District rate payers. e) Recent Operational Issues Plant Upset • Jeff talked about the process control challenges we have been experiencing at the plant over the past couple weeks. Jeff reported that over the past several months the department had been experimenting with more active process control. Plant Operations commonly operate with younger sludge, (“bugs”) in the activated sludge process in an effort to avoid nitrification. Nitrification is an expensive process which removes nitrogen, a valuable nutrient that the ranchers value so we try to avoid that mode of operation. Two weeks ago, the activated sludge got excessively thin and settled poorly in the secondary clarifiers. With young bugs there is often poor settling which is reflected in the SVI test the operators perform each day. In addition to the young sludge, they also experienced a huge development of “filamentous” type microorganisms. Filamentous are long filament organisms which tend to hold floc particles apart which also results in a poorly settling sludge. They fed sodium hypochlorite in an effort to control the filaments. Hypochlorite, (chlorine) kills microorganisms similar to the way chemotherapy kills cancer cells. The goal is to feed an adequate amount to reduce the number of filaments, while not impacting healthy bugs. Chemicals deal with the symptoms created by the filaments but the larger goal is to try and create an environment which is unfavorable to them. As a result of the poor settling, it was decided that the final effluent wasn’t suitable to discharge and the plant instead exported to one of the ERB’s for two days. In addition, they decided to import seed sludge from the neighboring DCSID treatment plant in Round Hill to try and speed up the process of growing a healthy activated sludge population. Secondary system process control theory is not a black and white process and is often debated by the greatest minds in the industry. Our operators apply their best available knowledge and experience to make logical process control decisions but because the process is based on biology, time and patience are required to allow the biology to change as a result of process control actions. The system is still in the healing process but effluent quality is acceptable. 5 • The department has gained some valuable information as a result of this upset and will be taking steps to enhance their ability to deal with these situations in the future. When the plant gets stressed and additional solids load is hitting the filter building, filters 5 and 6 really show their worth. They were recently rebuilt with new media and mechanical equipment and perform much better than the other four filters. Our return on our investment has been excellent. Jeff believes that moving forward with the replacement of media in the other four filters is prudent and currently slotted in the 10 year CIP process although the timing and sequence will likely be revisited. We received seed sludge from DCSID and we have enhanced our relationship with the neighboring plant. We have offered to reciprocate in the future if they need and have also proposed having all of our operators tour each other’s plants. • Kudos to the Operations Crew for rising to the occasion and meeting the challenge; for handling the many variables in determining process control actions. The entire department has been invested in this effort. Glenwood Well • Glenwood well seized up. John discussed some of the problems with the pump and bowl. It has been sent back to Carson Pump for a complete assessment and a rebuild estimate. The well itself looked good and will get a good cleaning while the pump is out. This was installed in 2002 and this is the first problem we’ve had. PFOAs Lab conducted testing of our treated wastewater effluent (here at plant and at the end of the C-Line) for 14 chemical PFOAs in September. We chose those 14 because there is legislation in the works to require testing on drinking water for them. Results showed detection of only 3 of the chemicals at measurements of 1.5, 3, and 5.4 ppt (parts per trillion) in our treated effluent. Legislation has already been passed in a number of states, and even in the strictest ones, the detection rates/levels found in our effluent would be considered well below the MCL (Minimum Contaminant Limit) in drinking water. We will need to monitor and test as required, but feel we are in no danger of ever reaching a violation limit. 5. ADJOURNMENT Next Ops Mtg. Next Operations Committee Meeting to be held on Tuesday, November 13, 2018, 3:30 pm.