BRUNSWICKREGIONAL WATER AND SEWER H2GO

BOARD WORKSHOP TO DISCUSS CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS

AUGUST 16, 2011

OFFICIAL MINUTES

Chairman Antos called the meeting to order at 10:00am and lead the assembly in the pledge of allegiance, a quorum was present.

Present from the Board was Chairman Carl Antos, Secretary Poe Butler, and Bobby Johnston.  Staff present was Director Bob Walker, Assistant Director Russ Lane and Scott Lewis, also present was the engineer for H2GO, Marty Stone of The Wooten Company.

Mr. Walker stated that the board had tasked him to prepare a list of capital improvement goals.  Mr. Walker said he and staff sat down last week and put together a list ranking with importance, which total a little over $60 million dollars.  Commissioner Butler asked about item #1, Mr. Walker stated this was a study that the board approved last week for the water supply treatment study for The Wooten Company to perform, Mr. Stone said he would have that done by the end of the year.  Commissioner Crowder said he heard at the county commissioner’s meeting that it is going to be at least six years before the county expands the North West Water Treatment Plant.

Mr. Walker referred to the items listed on page two; he said these are items that have been budgeted for that need to be done.

Mr. Lane explains the item for water sampling for $65,000 is to install water sampling stations in various locations so that we would not have to go to the customer’s house to get the samples.

Mr. Walker said item #2 will allow us to switch from one phase to three phases at the lift stations by adding DFD drives, he said we need about five of these and we can do these in house. 

Mr. Walker said item #3 was to install more water main isolation valves, Mr. Lane explained this would allow us to isolate a more specific area in the event we had to turn off the water; he said we can install these in house unless we do a cut in.

Mr. Walker said the next item is for lift station pump offs for the older lift stations, getting some by-pass valves so that we can hook up our portable pump in case of an emergency, Mr. Lane said our new specs call for this pump off valve to be installed when the lift stations are built.

Mr. Walker referred to the next six items, starting with the generator diesel fuel recovery down through the residential clean out, he said these six items are programs that we want to start or items that are mandated by the state.

Mr. Walker stated the next item is manual inspections, SSES repairs and I & I eliminations, he said we have a good start on this already, he said we have the report that The Wooten Company did about a year ago, he said there was a lot of information in there and Steve Hall and his crew work on the items as time allows, he said it is an ongoing thing.

Mr. Walker said we need to clear the easements that we have and we need to work with Belville on some easements there, where some property owners need to clear things from our easements so that we can keep them clear. 

Mr. Walker next talked about hydrant and valve maintenance and a GIS program, Mr. Walker said he met with Mr. Grimes of the Fire Department, Mr. Grimes said they have a web software program where we can identify each one of our hydrants, and do a visual inspection and a numbering system for each hydrant, Mr. Walker said the fire department has already numbered 75% of our hydrants, but has not located them, Mr. Walker said Russ Lane wants to get started on this program once the meter installation has been done.

Mr. Walker stated that to camera the lines and clean them is an ongoing project, he said Steve Hall would like to locate all building cleanouts, which will also be an ongoing program.

Mr. Walker said the maintenance items are all of equal importance and will be given equal attention.  As far as the administrative goals are concerned, Mr. Walker said there is no priority there; he said Mr. Lewis has already started on the water conservation program.  Mr. Walker said he and Mr. Coble are working on our service disconnect policy.  Scott Lewis said he has the script from Inhance to send to our on call system concerning service disconnect, Commissioner Crowder said he thinks the call system to let customers know they are getting close to disconnection will help, since this is one of the main complaints we get, that they did not know they were going to be cut off.

Concerning Water and Waste Water Accreditations Mr. Walker said AWWA and other professional organizations provide an opportunity for utilities to get accredited, he said we have to prove to them that we operate according to their guidelines and they have a list of procedures that we would have to go through, he said it is more of a recognition type thing that we could do.

Concerning the new waste water treatment plant (#3) Mr. Walker said we will advertise for the first phase in September, which will include the land preparations. Mr. Walker said the advertising for bids for the treatment plant will be in October.  The board was adamant about not having any change orders; Mr. Walker said we have to start with a good set of biddable plans.

Chairman Antos asked whether we had to go with the lowest bidder, Mr. Stone said that we better have a legitimate reason not to choose the lowest bidder because we would probably end up in court.  Mr. Walker said the General Statutes require us to choose the lowest responsive responsible bidder.  Mr. Walker said they decided to do the project in two phases because there are a lot of local contractors that could do phase one and when phase one is complete the soil improvement will be done so then the phase two contractor can come in with excavations, foundations, concrete right of way and not have to worry about soil improvements.

Concerning #4 Project, Russ Lane said this is where we need to tie in the water line at Highland Hills over to Parkwood to increase the water pressure.

Concerning #5 Project, Carol-Lynn, Mr. Walker said it should be determined within the next 30 days whether or not we will be going forward on that project.  Commissioner Butler said he and Commissioner Gaskill want to talk to some one who is familiar with this type of sewer system.  Mr. Stone said The Wooten Company worked on some of those projects in the early 90’s, Mr. Walker said he has a contact list that they can have.

Concerning #6, Old Fayetteville Loop, Mr. Lane said we are going to try and do this project in house, he said this would involve tearing up the intersection to find the line and install a valve and then chlorinate that section.

Concerning #7, Mallory Creek, Mr. Lewis said this is the same type project as the Old Fayetteville Loop, he said we have a line coming down highway 133 and the connection was never made at the entrance of Mallory Creek, he said we need to make that connection to increase water pressure, he said this project would need to be contracted out because we would have to bore under the road, Russ Lane said we need to go ahead while we are doing that and up size the line to a 12inch. Mr. Stone said that made perfect sense.

Mr. Walker said #8 and #9 are not under our direct construction management, which are the transmission line upgrades and wastewater treatment plant upgrade, he said the cost is approximately 9 million for the treatment plant expansion and 1.9 million for the transmission line upgrades, and our share is approximately 17% of those costs, he said it will be 2013 before we have to make any of these payments.

Concerning #10, Mr. Walker said we have projected that to be done by 2014; this is for a dedicated line from the booster pump tank to the elevated tank, this will enable us to fill the tank quicker.  Mr. Lane said this is the first year that we have data with the elevated tank installed, he said they want to look at the data for another year.  This will be a four million dollar project.

Concerning #11, Morgan Creek Collection System, Mr. Walker said this project will be based on what happens at Carol-Lynn.  Commissioner Crowder said Morgan Creek has been flagged by the Health Department as having some problems there.

Commissioner Johnston said he wanted to discuss #13, Mr. Walker said #13 and #14 go together, he said if we put a 5 mgd water treatment plant in and we are running 2 or 3 mgd on demand, we could run the 5mgd every day, take the excess water, pump it into the aquifer which will displace the brackish water and we can use it as a storage tank.

Mr. Walker said #15 goes hand in hand with #13 and #14; he said if we are treating the water we need an efficient way to get our water from the north end of our district to the south end.

Mr. Walker said #16, #17 and #18 are items that we discussed last week which is connecting the Seabrooke system to the downstream side of our boost pump, Mr. Stone said we already have most of the surveys for that project.  Mr. Walker said Scott Lewis has contacted Davis Fennel and we are going to be able to get digital copies of those surveys.  Mr. Stone said we could get the 8 inch re-permitted as a 12 inch fairly easy.  Mr. Walker said our plan is to implement water conservation strategies for Grayson Park until we can get that project done.

Concerning #19, Mr. Walker said this is to expand the treatment plant beyond a 400,000 gpd treatment plant, he said as soon as the plant goes online we notify the state that we are at 80% of our capacity and that we need to build an 800,000 gpd treatment plant. 

Concerning #20 and 21, Mr. Walker said this is looking for ways to reuse and recycle our waste water from the waste water treatment plant and our backwash water from our proposed water treatment plant.

Mr. Walker said #22 will be driven by additional customers over the next five years, he said we may need additional water storage.  Chairman Antos said that Compass Pointe has promised to give us some property for a storage tank.  Commissioner Butler said we should go ahead and pursue getting a deed of dedication for that.

Concerning #23, Mr. Russ Lane said this is the 12 inch line from Jackey’s Creek to Mallory Creek, he said this line will give us more flows for the hydrants.

Concerning the line from Lanvale Road to Grandiflora, Mr. Lane said this will give us a Parallel water line, a 12 inch arterial line around the big developments such as Waterford, and Magnolia Greens, he said this would be a  project for the future.

Concerning the line from NC 87 from Goodman Road to Colin Mintz Road, Mr. Lane said this would probably be a long time in the future.

Concerning Highway 74-76 from Compass Pointe to Malmo Loop Road, Mr. Lane said this area would have to be voluntarily annexed. 

Mr. Walker said Mr. Hook prepared the report on the last page, the report shows what we can spend on Capital Improvements.