May 8, 2023 Minutes

Record of Proceedings Kremmling Sanitation District Regular Board Meeting

May 8, 2023

The Board of Directors for the Kremmling Sanitation District met in the boardroom located at 200 Eagle Avenue. The meeting was called to order by President Noble Underbrink at 6:02 p.m. Directors present: Noble Underbrink, Eric Bradley, Stuart Heller and Dave Sammons. Director absents: Alan Hassler. Staff present: District Manager Rich Rosene, Superintendent Scott Weber, Town Manager Ashley Macdonald and Utility Billing Clerk Caitlin Parks. Audience present: None.

Board Vacancy: Rosene said that he had received a letter of interest from Eric Bradley for the 2-year position. He has not received any other inquiries for the position.

Appointment of Board Member to fill vacancy: Sammons moved to appoint Eric Bradley to fill the vacancy for two-year term. Heller Seconds. Motion Carried.

Oaths of Office: Underbrink administered the oath of office for a 4-year term to Dave Sammons. Underbrink administered the oath of office for a 2-year term to Eric Bradley. The oath of office for a 4-year term was administered to Alan Hassler last week by Underbrink. There was a short recess to file the oaths with Clerk and Recorder’s office.

Election officers: Underbrink asked for nominations for board officers for the next two years. Nominations are needed for President, Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary.

Heller moved to nominate noble Underbrink as president. Sammons Seconds. Motion Carried.
Heller moved to nominate Dave Sammons as Vice President. Bradely Seconded. Motion Carried.
Heller moved to nominate Eric Bradley as Treasurer. Sammons Seconded Motion Carried.
Underbrink moved to nominate Alsan Hassler as Secretary. Sammons Seconded. Motion Carried.

Approval of Minutes: Heller said the minutes need to be corrected to show that he was absent last meeting.
Sammons moved to approve the regular meeting minutes of April 10, 2023 as corrected; Bradley Seconded. Motion Carried.

Approval of Expenditures: Sammons moved to approve the expenditures presented for the period of April 11, 2023 through May 8 2023 in the amount of $51,860.17. Bradley Seconded. Motion Carried

Public Comment:

None.

Engineers Report:

Weber said that Nick Marcotte of Element Engineering is working on updating the user/treatment agreements and the notice of authorization for the reclaim water system. Weber said that Marcotte is willing to attend board meetings at the board’s desire, preferably by Zoom. The board asked Weber to talk with Marcotte to decide when attending would be necessary and beneficial.

Operators Report:

Weber said that the manhole at Pine and Central is above the grade of the road and has been hit a few times during snowplowing operations. The asphalt around the manhole is degraded and the town public works department said it is not scheduled for repair or replacement for 2-3 years. Town manager Macdonald said that the town received no bids this year on their asphalt project. Underbrink asked Weber to talk with public works to see if we can work together to get some cold patch or similar repairs done to minimize the problem. Weber said it is a difficult location due to it being located in the intersection and the turning of the grader during snowplowing operations. He will continue to work on this issue.
Weber said he has a bid to blade and apply mag chloride to the plant access road from G and G Services for $2,214. Macdonald said the town will try to help with new gravel on the road before the blading.

Bradley moved to accept the bid from G and G services for road grading and stabilizer for $2,214. Sammons Seconds. Motion Carried.

Weber said the meeting on May 3 concerning utility locates was a success. It was hosted by the Granby Sanitation District and held at the Granby fire station. Weber said that he and Zamora of the district attended along with Gillespie and Castillo from the town public works department. Contractors and utility operators from all across the county attended. He felt it was needed due to the deaths in the county the past few years and the natural gas line cut in Kremmling this past fall. Everyone who attended came away with a better understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the contractors and of the utilities.
Weber said he had 5 locate requests today with 3 from Denver owners with too large an area identified. They were asked to better define the actual location where locates are needed. He is required to locate our sewer mains and the lateral service lines. This can be a challenge with some of our tap records not having enough info on locations. The additional camera work we have planned will help to better locate the service tap locations on our mains.
Weber said a small blower has an oil leak. Kaeser, the manufacturer has been difficult to deal with as the repair needs a special tool and they won’t sell one, so they have to come and do the repair. Hopefully they will be here in about 2 weeks with an estimated cost of $2,000 for the repair. There are two other blowers that need gaskets replaced, but Weber will wait on them a bit longer. The April labs were completed on the 24th and he hasn’t received the results yet. Our in-house process labs are looking good. He found 32.5 mg/L of ammonia in the influent with 0.05 mg/L in pond C and 0.25 mg/L in pond D following treatment. The water temperature was 11.4 degrees C in pond D.
There was a pH violation on our permit that was due to an equipment issue that has been resolved. A pH probe wasn’t working correctly when Heather Halbritter was doing labs and she reported the results she got, as she is supposed to. The pH reported was 6.32 and our lower limit is 6.5. The probe was replaced and is working correctly. Yoder sent a letter to CDPHE explaining the issue and explained that the replacement has been completed.
Weber said he had a request to allow about 125,000 gallons of groundwater from a sump pump at the old Amax building to be brought to the septage receiving station. Apparently, the high-water levels this year are overwhelming the pump. Sammons said this has been an issue in that building for a number of years and that the Box Car property near there has a well with high fluoride. Weber said they will test the water before any is allowed to be brought to the septage station. He has talked briefly to Thom Yoder, our ORC, and will talk in more detail with him and Nick Marcotte, our District Engineer, to see if this is possible.
Weber said the sludge judge work has been done in ponds A, B, C and part of D. The last two cells in pond D are still frozen. Dominic Davis of Colorado Rural Water Association (CRWA) helped with the process. Weber showed a GIS map from our Diamond Maps program with all of the test points and their depths. Pond B has a pretty consistent depth of about 1.5 feet of sludge. Pond C was very good in the area with the diffusers and about 1.5 feet in the bio-dome areas. Pond D has about 1 to 1.5 feet in the first cell. He will be sending the information to Wade Stinson and Mike Mann of Wastewater Compliance Systems, the bio-dome company. Heller asked if he had an estimate on when we may need to dispose of the sludge. Weber said he is looking at some other avenues to reduce the sludge with the addition of lots of a new type of bug to eat the sludge at about ½ the cost of dredging and dewatering. If these bugs work, it should take just a few weeks to reduce the sludge. At this time, pond B is doing most of the work in reducing the ammonia.
Weber said they have been getting GPS locations on the North Interceptor manholes and showed a Diamond Maps GIS system map of this work. He is impressed with the Diamond Maps program, and it ease of use. He has talked to them for help, and they provide very good support. Additional pipe and manhole information along with attachments, such as pictures and camera videos, will be added to the data. He is going to add the reclaim water system to the program as they continue to add data for the collection system.

Managers' Report:

Update on reuse water franchise agreement with the town:
Rosene said the franchise agreement was still at the town’s water attorney for completion. The reclaim water rates for the school district will be considered and set at a later date. Weber said the school district needs to know when they may be able to switch over from town water to reclaim. Sammons asked if the town properties were ready to use the reclaim water. Weber said the user and treater agreements need to be finished. The reclaim system is ready to go as soon as the paperwork is done. The town may need to use town water initially until the agreements and training are completed. Weber said that Marcotte told him the agreements will be ready next week and the town should be able to use reclaim by mid-May. Weber will be starting the irrigation system at the plant tomorrow. Town manager Macdonald said the franchise agreement is tied up until a decision on a water rights case with a 21-day waiting period to renew some water rights.
Update on fund discrepancy issue with town: Rosene said he hasn’t completed this yet. He has looked through the deposit slip booklets to get the actual items in the deposits, but still has a couple of items that he needs access to the actual town checking account statements to decipher. He talked to the auditor, and she said the amounts were in the 2021 audit in a due to/due from section. He will continue to work on this and get the statements from the town.
Rate Study: Rosene said that the Department of Local Affairs has a company under contract to do rate studies at no cost to the district or town. Macdonald said the study must be done within 18 months of the new water plant contract to be valid for their use. Sammons said the bids to do a rate study ranged from $19,000 to over $50,000. Rosene and Macdonald will continue to work on the rate study.
Special District Association Regional Workshop: There will be an SDA workshop in Granby on Thursday, June 15, at the Granby fire station put on by a law firm that specializes in special district law. Underbrink and Hassler said they were interested in attending and Heller said he is a maybe. Rosene will get registrations started and check with Heller later on his ability to attend.

Business Items:

Discussion and Action on updating Change of Contact form with CDPHE: Rosene said he has another change of contact form to submit to CDPHE to update the treasurer contact to Teagan Serres, the town treasurer, and add Nick Marcotte as our Consulting Engineer. Heller moved to submit a change of contract update for Treasurer and consulting engineer to CDPHE. Sammons Seconded. Motion Carried.

Exhibit A – 2022 for shared employees. Rosene said he has a Schedule A for shared employees with the town but had a concern about the 50 percent of time for the utility and billing clerk. The other two town administrative support positions are at 30%. He asked town manager Macdonald to give her reasoning for the larger percentage of time. Macdonald said the position manages the front desk for any questions on billing and taps and is now doing time sheets and helping with benefits. Macdonald said she feels that this additional work and front desk support takes about 50% of the position’s time. The board felt the justification was acceptable. Sammons moved to approve the exhibit A for shared employees with the 50% for the Billing Clerk Position. Bradely Seconded. Motion Carried.

Discussion and Action on rate increase for septage receiving: Rosene said that the septage receiving rate needs to be adjusted to offset the increased costs for its treatment and the impacts it may be having on our overall treatment capacity. Weber said the current rates are $0.11 per gallon for all septage and that we won’t be accepting vault septage at all this year. Underbrink said he felt an increase to around $0.15 per gallon was justified as we have seen significant extra costs for additional sample testing, blower operation and other treatment processes. Sammons moved to raise the septage receiving rate to $0.15 per gallon for household septage. Heller Seconded. Motion Carried.

Discussion and Action on approval of Audit Engagement Letter with McMahan: Rosene said he has the audit engagement letter for the 2022 audit with McMahan and Associates. Rosene said he will talk to the auditors about our fund discrepancy issue again and to get assurance of a timely completion. Sammons moved to approve the audit engagement letter with McMahan and Associates for the 2022 audit. Bradley Seconded. Motion Carried. Town manager Macdonald said they will also be using McMahan this year and plan to do a Request for Proposal next winter as we have both been with McMahan for a number of years and it may be good to explore our options.

Discussion Items:

Bradley asked when the domes may be pulled out for inspection. Weber said he plans to check some later in May, but that Wade Stinson felt that we may not need to pull them to test their aeration ability. Weber said he has talked to a crane company and that the domes do have a grab eye if they need to be lifted out. Underbrink asked about a marine crane pontoon to do the job and Weber said he hasn’t found one yet.
Heller asked about the grant for a portable generator. Weber said he talked with some folks
at the recent CRWA conference about this and is going to look at the CDOT generator to see if it can be made portable if we take over that lift station. CDOT has the manuals for the generator, and he will talk to the local CDOT supervisor to see if he has heard anything about the lift station transfer proposal recently. He has talked to Brandon at Water Technology Group, and they have been talking with CDOT about the terms and conditions they sent CDOT for the generator inspection. Weber said that Mountain Parks Electric has been watching our power line closely for any signs of osprey activity and so far, so good.

Adjournment:

Bradley moved to adjourn at8:09 PM. Sammons Seconded. Meeting Adjourned.

Adjourned
Signed:
/s/ Alan N. Hassler
Secretary