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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007-11-15 - MinutesCity Council Water & Sewer Meeting Minutes November 15, 2007 Page l of 10 Member Aldermen Mayor Dan Coady Ward 1 Position 1 — Adella Gray V10 Ward 2 Position l - Kyle rt Cook CityAttorney Kit Williams � 1 Ward 3 Position 2—Robert Ferrell Ward 4 Position 2 - Lioneld Jordan City Clerk Sondra Smith ARKANSAS City of Fayetteville Arkansas City Council Water & Sewer Committee Meeting Minutes November 15, 2007 A meeting of the Fayetteville City Council Water & Sewer Committee was held on November 15, 2007 at 4:30 p.m. in Room 326 of the City Administration Building located at 113 West Mountain Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas. MEMBERS PRESENT: Alderman Kyle Cook, Chair; Alderman Lioneld Jordan; Alderman Robert Ferrell; Alderwoman Adella Gray STAFF PRESENT: David Jurgens; Gary Dumas; Susan Thomas; Tim Conklin; Ron Petrie OTHERS PRESENT: Billy Ammons and Duyen Tran, OMI; Stephen Davis, Davis Business Planning Alderman Cook called the meeting to order. 1. Approve Minutes Alderman Ferrell moved that the minutes of the September 25, 2007, September 27, 2007 and October 9, 2007 Water & Sewer Committee meetings be approved as distributed. Alderman Jordan seconded the motion and itpassed unanimously. 2. WSIP Update David Jurgens said things are coming to completion on (parts of) the WSIP, though the closeout process on contracts takes time. Right now the staff is at the very peak of all of the contracts we will have in action at one time and that is brutal. We have several projects to close out and two on which we will soon be opening bids. a. WL -2 Gravity line from North to Fulbright, along Gregg Ave. David Jurgens said there is a change order attached to this agenda for WL -2. It is mostly a reconciliation change order for $13,000. That job went very smoothly. This will leave $207,000 in the contingency (for this project) which will roll back into the total project contingency. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Water & Sewer Meeting Minutes November 15, 2007 Page 2 of 10 b. WSIP Farmington Area Work David Jurgens said the Farmington loan closing was scheduled for November 19 but he received a note this morning saying it was being delayed a little longer because they have to get the Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) published. The Arkansas Natural Resources Commission has not done this yet but they expect to have it by the first week of December. This won't affect the bids on this work. Those bid openings are scheduled for January 8, 2008 and will be advertised in the first week in December. C. WSIP Easement Update David Jurgens said a table with the easement update is attached to the agenda for this meeting. He said we have seven easements that are still not signed for EL -2. We have a verbal agreement on all of those seven. It is just a matter of closing the loops. Alderman Cook asked for an update on the two easements that were pulled from the Council agenda. David Jurgens said the staff met with the Tuck's regarding their easement. Mrs. Tuck's children thought she had already signed it. They want some fencing along the edge of the boundary to keep the cows in, which we would do anyway. They also want specific protections during the construction period and they wanted to see what the maintenance requirements would be after construction. We now just have to finish the side letter based on their requirements. He believes we will have this tied up within three or four days. For the Combs easement, Mr. Combs said he would donate the easement for a tax credit. That means we will send him a letter certifying what the appraised value of the property is or something like that. Mr. Jurgens said he has passed this on to David Whitaker (the City Attorney's office) and Mr. Whitaker said it was legal and acceptable. d. Contract Legal Review — West Plant Construction Contract David Jurgens said we have received further information from a couple of the attorneys and we have a meeting scheduled to go over and make the selection. This is a process to review the contract. Once the selection is made, we will be entering negotiations for the contract amount and scope of work. e. WL -6 Change Orders (Hamestring Lift Station) David Jurgens said we will probably have two change orders coming forward on this project. One will be very small, well within the contingency that is remaining. The other will be outside the current scope of work and might be a four or five hundred thousand dollar change order. He said he isn't sure yet of the exact amount because staff has not yet costed it out. He said the standards now require that if there are pipes coming in that are 30 inches in diameter or larger, there must be a screen of some sort in place. Screens can be inherently messy. They are designed to catch stuff and protect the pumps, which in turn protects the plant by preventing large diameter articles from getting into the pumps. He said he has seen and pulled out bowling balls, hard hats, 2 x 4's, kid's bicycle, etc. from our sewer system. These lines are big enough that these sorts of things could get to the pump station. If we have a problem with the pump and it ruptures, then we could have a significant problem in that lift station very quickly. He said we 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Water & Sewer Meeting Minutes November 15, 2007 Page 3 of 10 had two problems like this at the Noland plant three or four years ago, both of which resulted in more than $100,000 worth of damage. One resulted in a pretty significant sewer overflow. So to meet the standards and to protect the lift station and the plant, Mr. Jurgens is strongly recommending that we put in a channel monster type of screen that essentially is a very effective grinder that is self cleaning, preventing an odor problem or the creation of stuff that has to be hauled away. Mr. Jurgens is proposing that he bring forward an independent change order on this contract to the full council for the grinder and a valve actuator to control the mechanism between the two force mains. This will be linked to the contract for WL -6 but will be somewhat separate from it so we can close out most of the work on WL -6 and get the ANRC paperwork done while this change order is being executed. Alderman Cook asked where this would be installed. David Jurgens said it would be at the Hamestring lift station. This is the big lift station that carries all the water to the plant. Alderman Ferrell asked if this was excluded from the design during the design period. David Jurgens said it was excluded during that time. He said he isn't sure exactly when in that period it was excluded. He said it could have been before 2003 or anytime that year or the next. He said he remembers that it was discussed at some point during the value engineering session. He said he believes it was in the early value engineering session (at 30%) that it was excluded. Alderman Ferrell asked how much money we are talking about. David Jurgens said he figures about four to five hundred thousand dollars. He said we don't have estimates yet. Alderman Ferrell said he questions the decision not to include this (in the original contract). He said if each incident can result in $100,000 damage, he believes it was an unwise decision to forego this. David Jurgens said he agrees. That is why he is now bringing it forward. He said he wasn't involved in the decision making. He said this station needs this protection. This is a small price to pay on the front end. He said as we have gone through the whole project, we are now getting to the point where we can figure out the nuts and bolts details of how it is all going to work. He said we are identifying the operational techniques we are going to have to use to make things happen. He mentioned the possibility of purchasing a boom truck to do some of the work at the lift stations, as well as being available for other city divisions when needed. He said this will coming forward at the next meeting. He said at this point we are getting into the process of determining how we are really going to make this whole system work, analyzing all the details. Within the next few weeks we will be identifying individual pieces of furniture needed. So there will be some oddball kinds of things coming in as we work out the physical operations of the lift stations, plant and collection system. Alderman Ferrell asked if the Fleet division has a cherry picker. David Jurgens said they do have a cherry picker and it would be able to pick up parts of this but he doesn't think it can pick up the entire pump and motor assembly. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Water & Sewer Meeting Minutes November 15, 2007 Page 4 of 10 Alderman Ferrell said he recommends that we look at this to see if it is designed to pick up this much. David Jurgens said he has been talking to David Bragg (at Fleet) and that's why he doesn't have anything ready to come forward at this meeting. We need to figure out what is available and what we need. It would have to be accessible in an emergency in case a pump has a problem in the middle of the night. He said we are not ready to bring anything forward on this yet. But he does want the Committee to be aware that we will be bringing some of these kinds of things forward as we figure out what the right solution is. Alderman Cook asked if these sorts of items would come out of the contingency funds. David Jurgens said we have $270,000 left from spares and maintenance equipment (rainbow sheet). We also have $200,000 in the furniture and equipment for the Westside plant. If those won't cover the expense we would pull some of it out of contingency. He said there are a lot of details and some of the details you can't see on a set of plans. You have to have the operators on the ground and see how to make things work. Alderman Cook said he understands there will be some of that. But he is concerned more about the item that we knew we would need at the beginning of the project and then consciously decided to pull out and now we're saying we have to have it back in there. He said that is a little frustrating. David Jurgens said he doesn't know but that maybe the Ten State Standards changed from the time the decision was made. The Health Department approved this and he doesn't think they would have had we not met the standards at the time. He agrees that it is frustrating and he would much rather have had it on the front end when we executed the contract rather than coming back to add it later. He said so far we haven't had to bring anything back to the Committee and he has been pretty pleased with that. He said with WL -4 we will have to come back for a change order just because of the amount of rock we hit on the 48 -inch pipe line. He said we are still figuring out the details on that. Alderman Cook asked who is doing the construction observation on this. Who came up with the quantities and was watching them. David Jurgens said RJN had full time inspection on this and Lynn Hyke was out there every day. We did measurements and notes every day on the volumes of rock. They actually balanced up every week and rebalanced with every monthly pay estimate. U WSIP Construction Schedule and Cost Update David Jurgens said there haven't been many changes on the rainbow sheet. He said a couple of dates were firmed up on the Farmington bid opening (January 8, 2008). 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Water & Sewer Meeting Minutes November 15, 2007 Page 5 of 10 3. Sanitary Sewer Rehabilitation Project Update a. Basins 1-5, 18, & 19 Sewer Rehab David Jurgens said T -G Excavating has completed all the work on the one job (Doc Murdock's). We are closing out that project. All the paving has been completed. b. Farmington Area David Jurgens said the dig -and -replace portion of this project was at 64% as of last week. They have started doing the lining and should be done within two weeks. That entire project with both contracts should be completed within the next six weeks. C. Basin 15 and minisystems 2, 5, 6 and 13A manhole rehabilitation David Jurgens said Basin 15 is the Hamestring Basin. The other part of this is several areas on the southern part of town where manhole rehab had not ever been done. We will be opening bids on December 6, 2007. He said we are looking at about a million dollars worth of work and we will be using a STAG grant. This will be the last STAG grant that we have not obligated. That grant will account for about a half a million dollars of the work. 4. 36" Water Line Improvements David Jurgens said the work in town is complete. There are two pressure sustaining valves that we told the contractor he had to wait until this fall to install because we will have to shut down the transmission lines several weeks. He will be doing that within the next six to eight weeks. 5. OMI Contract Amendment for 2008 David Jurgens pointed out the highlights on the contract with OMI. He said in the contract amendment there is a summary table (page 12 of 14) that shows the comparative cost between 2007 and 2008. There is also a table on page 13 that breaks down by area of effort how much each of their specific work tasks will cost. He said in doing the 2008 budget, we are taking the wastewater treatment program and separating it into multiple programs. It will mirror what we do for water and sewer. This will enable us to capture the West plant, the Noland plant and the lift station costs separately. This will let us better identify areas of cost as we look to go out to bid with this contract in 2009. It also lets us better identify that OMI's contract is more than just running the Noland plant. It also includes other specific tasks that are somewhat independent of plant location and that kind of work. We now have two permits to manage at the State instead of one. One lab is going to do the primary work for both plants so that we minimize the size of the lab at the West plant, etc. Then the lift stations are actually completely independent from the plant operation. Alderman Cook said "way back when" the Water & Sewer Committee discussed the contract for the West side plant. He said he knows OMI has been helping us along on the West side plant and as far as he can remember they've always had the contract on the East side plant. However, at one point we discussed putting that out and taking bids from other operators. He said this is nothing against OMI but we just wanted to verify that we were getting the best deal we could get. He said he was a little surprised when he saw this item. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Water & Sewer Meeting Minutes November 15, 2007 Page 6 of 10 David Jurgens said he remembers that staff statements have always been that we can't separate the two plants. We are not planning on having a fully manned plant out there. He said this is a fully integrated operation. In this first year it is all integrated in that the same people will be doing work at both plants at the same time. What he seems to remember in the discussions is that we didn't think there was any way to separate the two plants' operations at this point. He said he doesn't think we will be able to in the future either. But we will have to go out for selection soon anyway because the contract has a maximum of fifteen years, which would carry us to December 31, 2009. He said he never remembers receiving guidance to plan on splitting the two and his answer would have been that he doesn't believe we could do that. He said we are hauling sludge with one group. We don't want to have certain sludge trucks dedicated to one plant and certain trucks dedicated to the other plant. It would not be an efficient way of doing business, especially in start-up. He said the West plant is not intended to be manned 24 -hours. We will have one person staying, probably at the Noland Plant because it is the harder plant to operate because of its age. If he sees something on the SCADA at the West plant he can go out and respond to it as needed. Mr. Jurgens said if we were to do this as two separate operations for one year or a half a year, we probably wouldn't get any bids on a short term piece. And we don't know enough about the plant operation at this time to make a commitment to a long-term contract right now. We need to have it in place for a little bit before we can really get somebody to bid on it. Alderman Cook asked if this contract is up at the end of 2009. David Jurgens said the maximum the contract can run is the end of 2009. Right now the contract expiration date is Dec. 31, 2008. He is recommending that it go one more year so we can have the West plant in operation for a year and then we can go out for proposals to get operators or do it ourselves starting in 2009. All three of these need to be looked at. Alderman Cook said that's what he wants to look at. He said he has nothing against OMI but he wants to make sure that we are giving the taxpayers of Fayetteville the best value we can. He said he doesn't want to compare it to the ambulance deal necessarily but it is the same sort of thing. It's not that we have anything against CEMS but we want to be guaranteed that we're getting the best operator at the best price we can get for our citizens. David Jurgens agreed and said we absolutely have to put the contract out to bid no later than December 31, 2009. The existing contract can not be extended beyond that. He said his recommendation is that we let the contract go through December 31, 2009 so we have a good definable scope of work and we have an operations plan and an operational history at the West plant. That will make it a much more "known quantity" when we are selecting operators. They will know what they are getting into and we can then get honest estimates. Alderman Cook said the plant will have been open about a year when we start the process. David Jurgens agreed that is when we will be doing the selection. Alderman Ferrell asked Mr. Jurgens if signing an "Out of Scope" letter would obligate the City with OMI any longer than the contract. David Jurgens said it would not. He said that Out of Scope letter is what has been on the rainbow sheet for several years. It is the line item that we call "Cut Over Demo". It has been 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Water & Sewer Meeting Minutes November 15, 2007 Page 7 of 10 listed as a contract amendment with OMI. The reason for that is that it involves work at about twelve different lift stations and they have been doing the work anyway. The time frame will be less than the contract. Alderman Ferrell asked if we were reviewing bids for an operations contract right now, would other respondents' bids include the direct cost and the direct cost markup at 10%. Billy Ammons said that depends completely on how you want to structure it. Every contract everywhere is different. This is the way this one was set up and OMI has maintained it for the past fourteen years this way. He said this is what we call a "cost plus" contract. There are several reasons for doing it this way but mostly it is protection for the City so that they know what OMI is making and the City can make the decisions about whether we want to spend the money or not on different items. He said OMI does not make a penny by not spending the money to protect the City's facility. David Jurgens said last year he talked with HDR (who were also doing the Rogers rate study) and they compared the costs of the Rogers utility running their wastewater plant and our utility running our plant. He said if he remembers right, their permit is not as stringent as ours. We are more effective in our phosphorous at .5 parts per million (ppm) but the permit limit is 1 (ppm) on the phosphorous piece. Billy Ammons said Rogers has a 1 on phosphorous as well. We effectively have a.5 ppm because of the agreement with Beaver Water. To his knowledge we have the most stringent permit in the State of Arkansas. David Jurgens said our costs were very close to identical with some aspects a little lower than Rogers utility costs for running their plant in house. So we did that cost analysis in the interim as we were going through this. That was about a year ago when the last amendment came forward. He said he could redistribute that memo if the Committee would like for him to. Alderman Cook asked if this needs to be passed tonight. David Jurgens said it has to go forward in December because the contract would start January 1, 2008. He said he has brought it forward to the committee now because he has submitted it to the Clerk for the first Council meeting in December. He said he likes to parallel it with the budget. This information has been included with the budget. Alderman Cook said we have another meeting scheduled for December 6. David Jurgens said he was anticipating this going forward for the December 4 Council meeting but if the Committee wants him to defer it one meeting we can do that. Alderman Cook said it can stay on the agenda. We can just table it. He said he would like one more meeting to look this over because he hasn't had a chance to really read through it yet. David Jurgens said that is okay. One other thing he wants to point out on the contract amendment is that he is requesting (for the first time with this contract) a contingency be approved. It is not part of their contract but it is a contingency just like we would do with a regular construction contract. He said he thinks we are going to hit some specific tasks that aren't 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Water & Sewer Meeting Minutes November 15, 2007 Page 8 of 10 covered in the contract because of the new plant coming on line. There are just going to be some things that come up. What we don't want to have to do is come back to the Council for approval of a $5000 item or other little stuff that's going to come up as we start operating this new facility. Like any other change order, it would come forward to this Committee. But there may be some stuff we have to do right away. Alderman Cook said it is basically "cost-plus" as Billy Ammons said. So Mr. Jurgens is just asking for a contingency so staff can react quickly in case something comes up. David Jurgens said it is cost-plus but it has a defined scope of work. So if there are oddball things that might be outside that specific scope of work that have to be done, that is what the contingency is for. Alderman Ferrell asked for a quick example of what one of those oddball things would be. David Jurgens gave the example of the Corps of Engineers deciding we have to do some work downstream from where the effluent comes out. Or we have to do something different with the communications system because we find that in the spring when the leaves are out the path analysis doesn't work any more. 6. Noland WWTP Clarifier Replacement David Jurgens said the clarifiers were not part of the contract work we have been doing at the plant. It is part of the scheduled maintenance but to purchase the equipment is a capital expense. One has already been done two years ago. We are looking at fixing the second clarifier early next year — buying the hardware through the normal bid process this year and then doing the work next year. At the Noland plant that clarifier can be operated without the turntable (though it will take a little more work if we hit high flow events) so it doesn't need to wait until the West plant comes on line. Then when the West plant comes on line we will be doing some of the others that can't be done now. This would be a bid item (for equipment) then OMI would do the work within the contract. What he is now requesting is approval to put the bid out for the clarifier turntable so it can be replaced early next year. In response to a question from Alderman Ferrell, Mr. Jurgens said this is a budgeted capital item. Alderman Cook gave his approval to go forward with this and other aldermen present verbally agreed 7. Water/Sewer Committee Meetings A meeting of the Water & Sewer Committee to discuss the Rate Study was scheduled for Thursday, December 13, 2007 (this date was later changed to Dec. 19). Mr. Jurgens said Tom Gould will send information as a read ahead packet before the meeting. This should be available to the Committee about a week or week and a half before the meeting. Mr. Gould will be here for the December 13 meeting. A regular meeting of the Water & Sewer Committee was scheduled for Tuesday, December 11, 2007. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Water & Sewer Meeting Minutes November 15, 2007 Page 9 of 10 Alderman Cook brought up one other item to discuss. He said Tim Conklin called him today and said the impact fee study is ready to come back to the Committee. The question is whether the Committee wants to put this issue on the table to start discussing it or if they want to wrap water & sewer rates first and then move into that. Alderman Ferrell said he would rather wrap up water & sewer rates first. Tim Conklin said the consultant has a trip in their contract to be here this year. He will have to let them know soon. If the committee wants to wait it would be January when we would schedule them to come in. They need notice to make their arrangements. Alderman Cook asked the Committee what their wishes are. He said if we want to wait, we can wait. If they want to throw it in the mix, we can do that. Alderman Ferrell said he would recommend we do the water and sewer rates first and then go into this. David Jurgens said staff will bring the impact fees forward to the committee in January or after the water and sewer rate discussion. Alderman Ferrell asked a question about the OMI monthly goals. He said he has heard from some people who pass by the Noland plant early in the morning that they are encountering a bad odor. He wondered when and if the problems with the odor control units will be resolved. David Jurgens said we are holding cash from the contractor. That is one of the reasons we haven't closed that contract. Billy Ammons of OMI said the contractor is on site today and is supposed to be here tomorrow. Alderman Cook asked if they have identified the problem. Billy Ammons said one of the problems appears to be something that they cannot yet identify. Other problems stem from the fact that the company that sold us the unit (Siemans) is a very large company that has recently purchased several smaller companies. One issue was the result of the fact that they wanted the RJ Environmental (one company they purchased who used to sell the odor control system) to use some electrical relays from another company they had purchased. These proved to be inadequate. After several months of messing with it, they finally connected the right relays and now that problem has been solved. However, there is some issue on the electrical side that should be straight forward but so far no one has been able to identify. It isn't something OMI can try to fix since this is still a warranty/contractor issue. He said they are a little frustrated with this issue. Alderman Ferrell asked if there is any time jeopardy on the warranty. David Jurgens said they (the contractor) will have to resolve it. Billy Ammons said they have to resolve it or walk away from the money. David Jurgens said if they walk away we will call in the bond. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Water & Sewer Meeting Minutes November 15, 2007 Page 10 of 10 In response to a question from Alderman Cook, David Jurgens said we have actually released quite a bit of the retainage. We have only held retainage for those items for which the bugs haven't been worked out. He said this is the only item left and is the reason we haven't closed out the contract. Alderman Ferrell asked if it could be expected that the contractor could give a date by which they think they can have this done. David Jurgens said they gave us a date of two months ago. It has been a troubled shooting, problem solving, "work with it and play with it to see what works" kind of issue. He said we will probably see some of these at the West plant also. It is going to be an issue of figuring out how to make everything work together. Alderman Cook asked if the contractor has been responsive. Billy Ammons said he wouldn't say that. David Jurgens said there has been some "pulling teeth" and held money. That has been the leverage. If they walk away from the problem, we will pull the bond. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org