Published: May 11, 2008 10:15 pm            

Council to focus on water issues

Following city crisis in 2007

FAIRMONT — The corrective-action engineers hired last year to assess the water crisis that occurred during the winter of 2007 at Fairmont’s water plant are slated to hold an informational work session with council members and city officials tonight.

Wisconsin-based STRAND Associates made recommendations for short- and long- term corrective actions at the plant to ensure that another water crisis like the one that occurred at the five-year-old plant would not ever happen again.

At that time, the membranes in the plant were getting clogged with residue from its Tygart River source and slowing plant production to a point too low to completely meet the high demand of all of its customers. This left some customers with little to no pressure in their homes and led to boil-water advisories for several days at a time.

STRAND has also helped assess the roles — if any — of both the plant manufacturer, Canadian firm GE-Zenon Environmental Inc., and the plant engineer, Chapman Technical Group. Chapman was the consultant that completed the design on the plant when it was built in 2003.

Tonight, Fairmont utilities manager Dave Sago said that officials from STRAND will be meeting with council members, city officials, and new City Manager Jim Snider to talk about the work they’ve done over the last year at a 5 p.m. work session prior to the regular, rescheduled council meeting.

Before the start of this past winter, some short-term improvements recommended by STRAND were implemented within the system. These improvements, according to the corrective-action plan, were geared to reduce solids ahead of the membrane filters, increase the pH to improve manganese oxidation and improve the membrane system operation.

Sago said that these actions helped significantly at getting the system through this past winter with no issues. But in order to keep the plant running correctly for the long term, a set of more permanent corrective actions are now being planned, which Sago said officials from STRAND are slated to present to council at tonight’s meeting.

“It is basically going to be an update to council on the long-term corrective action plan for the water treatment plant,” Sago said. “STRAND will give a proposal on why we had the emergency situation two years ago, what caused the issues, and what we need to do to overcome those on a permanent basis.”

This plan, according to numbers presented to council during a budget work session two months ago, carries a price tag of $8.3 million and should be started in the near future, Sago said. But because the city’s water fund does not currently have the money to support this project — and was facing a more than $409,000 deficit during budget time — and no financial compensation has been received from Zenon or Chapman yet, officials have said that the only way to pay for this project is by raising customer rates.

“Obviously will need a rate case to support the project with a magnitude of that,” Sago said.

At the preliminary estimated price on the project, which officials have said still has to be heavily analyzed, Sago has said water rates are looking to go up by about $1 per 1,000 gallons of water. At this rate, average-usage customers can expect to see a $4.50 increase in their bills per month, which would bump up the average two-month bill approximately $8 or $9. Officials expect that the possible rate increase will include not only the system’s residential, commercial and industrial customers, but also its resale customers.

The last rate increase, which was implemented in August, was initiated to get the city caught up on the monthly bond payments for the $40 million system. Sago said during budget time that this 21.4 percent increase on residential, commercial and industrial — but not resale — accounts just recently began getting realized within the water fund and is expected to help lower the current deficit.

Sago said the city has had some discussion with officials from Chapman and Zenon, and although no official legal action has been taken on the situation yet, the city’s legal council is currently trying to schedule mediations on the issue.

For Snider, who just took over his new position last month, tonight’s work session will be the first time he will be involved in a meeting about the water fund as the city manager. He said that he will meet with some of the officials in the afternoon prior to the meeting to get briefed on the content so he will be as informed as possible during the work session.

“This is definitely a time for council to get updated on the progress of the situation that has arrived,” Snider said.

He added that from what he has learned, a rate case will likely be necessary to pay for the long-term corrective actions that are planned. But he said that officials are doing what they can to make the burden on the rate payers as minimal as possible.

And for council, Mayor Scott Sears said tonight’s work session will be a time for members to listen and learn what STRAND officials have found out, what their long-term recommendations are for the system and all of the other details of their work over the last year.

“What we’re looking at is to get an overall better view of the corrective measures of the water plant,” Sears said. “It is a time for council to see where we’re at and where we need to be with the corrective measures.”

E-mail Mallory Panuska at mpanuska@timeswv.com.

        

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