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ARDEN HILLS REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETNG—JANUARY 30, 2012 4 <br /> Public Works Director Maurer explained that the lack of any standardization makes the <br /> operation and maintenance of the City's 14 lift stations much more difficult than it should be. <br /> Specifically, some of the issues that need to be addressed include: <br /> • At least four or five different pump manufacturers are used in the 14 lift stations. <br /> • One of the prominent pumps present in our lift stations, Pump X, ceased manufacturing in <br /> 2005 and discontinued the manufacture of spare parts in 2010. <br /> • The operating system used in our most recently reconstructed lift stations, Sycom, is <br /> proprietary software and the one vendor that services it has become very unreliable. <br /> • Electro Watchman, who we use for monitoring alarms at our lift stations, is not able to <br /> provide basic information about alarms. For instance, when Lift Station #8 was <br /> overwhelmed by rain water in July 2011, Electro Watchman sent many messages to our <br /> Public Works crew about alarms. However, when we were working with the LMC <br /> insurance adjuster, we discovered that Electro Watchman could not tell us if Lift Station <br /> #8 ever lost power. They could only tell us that there were alarms at specific times, not <br /> what the alarm was indicating. <br /> Public Works Director Maurer explained that because of the issue of non-standardization, Seth <br /> Peterson of Bolton and Menk worked with the Public Works crew to come up with a standard <br /> design, pump manufacturer, and standard control system for all the lift stations that would then <br /> become the model for the design of the reconstruction of Lift Station #13. This process took <br /> several months and included site visits by some of the Public Works crew to two service <br /> departments of pump manufacturers to review their pumps and see their service departments. <br /> After this process, Flygt pumps were established as the standard for all the City's lift stations. <br /> Public Works Director Maurer stated that there currently are four lift stations in need of some <br /> upgrading. (The detail of each lift station upgrade is included in the agenda memo.) He reviewed <br /> the following list in order of priority: <br /> 1. Lift Station#8 located at 1335 Ingerson Road. <br /> 2. Lift Station#5 located at 3495 Lake Johanna Boulevard. <br /> 3. Lift Station#7 which is located at 3220 Lake Johanna Boulevard (Presbyterian Homes). <br /> 4. Lift Station#2 located at 1850 County Road E2 (along the trail behind Perry Park). <br /> Public Works Director Maurer stated that as part of the standardization of our lift stations, an <br /> OmniSite unit will be installed in each upgraded control cabinet. The OmniSite is a monitoring <br /> system that will replace the need for Electro Watchman at these upgraded control panels. It will <br /> also eliminate the need for a SCADA system that is in the CIP in 2014. OmniSite uses cellular <br /> technology to provide a cell call, text message, and/or e-mail in the case of an alarm at the lift <br /> station. Unlike our current monitoring system, it will identify the exact cause of the alarm so the <br /> responding Public Works employee knows what to expect before getting there. It will also create <br /> a record for future reference. Similar to a SCADA system, any lift station with an OmniSite <br /> controller can have its operation monitored from any computer., The only difference between <br /> OmniSite and SCADA is you cannot make adjustments to the lift station operation remotely. The <br /> cost of installing an OmniSite at a lift station control panel is about $2,00043,000 as compared to <br /> a SCADA system that is closer to $12,000415,000 based on our 14 lift stations. <br />