BWD Special Board-of-Directors Meeting - 9/25/09

In a special meeting last Friday at the new Water Treatment Plant members of the BWD Board-of-Directors met to consider two special requests concerning Part A of the Salineville water line project. All members of the Board were present along with District Manager Al DeAngelis. At the regular monthly meeting last week Southern Local School District Superintendent James Herring asked that the water district reconsider the tap-in fee for that school system. Highlandtown VFD Chief Tim Roush made the second request saying the distance between planned fire hydrants in his community was unacceptable.

Part A of the Salineville water line covers nearly eight of the ten miles needed to supply an EPA demanded new water source to that village. The contract to install the pipe line for Part A has been rewarded to Dave Sugar Excavating and the notice to proceed is expected to be given this week. The first phase is the installation of over 40,000 feet of 16" diameter water line from the Red Brick Church on Rt. 45 across country to just past the Southern Local School complex on Rt. 39. It is a $2.7 million contract.

The tap-in fee for Southern Local is based on an industry wide accepted EPA formula using a daily usage of 20 gallons of water per day (gpd) on average for each student. That 20 gallon figure includes restroom usage, cafeteria, locker room showers plus other things like getting a drink of water. Superintendent Herring advised the Board that based on actual usage tracked by the school district 20 gpd is excessive and consequently means an excessive tap-in fee. He asked that the Board reconsider the tap-in fee based on actual usage instead of the applying the EPA formula. Southern Local has 960 students in the school district.

At a Rate Committee meeting this past Tuesday it was decided to stick to the EPA formula and to offer a three year payment plan at 0 % interest to the school. Rate Committee Chairman Jack Call, along with Committee members Gene McGaffick & Chuck Bibbee, proposed that recommendation to the whole Board at Friday's meeting. Call stated they do not dispute Herring's numbers but felt the Board has to stick with established policy on tap-in fees. The recommendation was approved by a unanimous vote of all Board members.

Engineering Committee Chairman Chuck Bibbee advised the Board that since last week's regular meeting they have had a BWD inspector out in the field double checking the placement of the planned 36 fire hydrants originally called for in the installation contract. He also stated that at a Committee meeting held last Tuesday it was decided to stick with the AWWA standard of hydrant placing plus adding up to six additional hydrants maximum to help in the Highlandtown area. Bibbee announced that the inspector found that with the movement of some of the planned 36 hydrants and adding a few more that no house in the Highlandtown area would be out of reach using the amount of hose that VFD has on hand. The changes would nearly eliminate the need to shuttle water by tanker truck in that area. With that in mind Engineering Committee Chairman Bibbee along with Committee members Tim O'Hara & Gene McGaffick proposed those recommendations to the whole Board. The only discussion on the recommendation was made by member Jack Call saying he took offense of Roush's comment in the newspaper that the Board "brushed him off" after being told his request would be referred to the appropriate committee. With no other discussion the Engineering Committee's recommendation was passed with only Cal Carney dissenting. Carney offered no comment on his reasoning for voting against the recommendation.

After the vote it was noted that in the future should any housing developments or commercial interests be built in that area additional hydrants can be easily installed. Board President Mike Ryan remarked that with the elimination of six or seven turn-on/shut-off redundant valves in the original plans the cost of the additional hydrants would be acceptable. Those valves were incorporated in the original plans in consideration of future development. Again if that were to occur in the future they can be easily installed.

It's also interesting to note that if it wasn't for Salineville's problems with the EPA neither one of these issues would have every come up. In a survey two years ago by the BWD only 5% of the residents of the nearly 100 households along the path of the Part A of this project indicated they were interested in getting their water from the district.

With the money released for the first part of this project the BWD district is busy getting the required signatures on all the documents. Once that is accomplished the Notice to Proceed will be given to Sugar Excavating. When that is happens Sugar has up to 150 days to have it completed. Bids for the second part is expected to go out in the very near future.

The next regular meeting is scheduled for Thursday, October 22, 9 A.M. at Wellsville Village Hall.

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