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ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — MAY 27, 2025 20 Public Works Director/City Engineer Swearingen said the reason the altitude valve is needed is because the booster station creates so much pressure that it starts feeding the north tower, as well. It would be a part of this design work. Councilmember Weber asked if that is scoped. Public Works Director/City Engineer Swearingen confirmed. Councilmember Weber said that is good to know. That is $150,000 back in our pocket if this fits into the budget. He said there was a huge gap in testing of the hydrants. Half of the testing for the modeling was done in 1990 and the other half was done in 2019, from what he can tell. This report brings that up as a concern about whether or not we can trust the results of the model based on how outdated those tests are. He read that in 2019 the recommendation was to test every year, or a least update the model. He said there has been a long gap without testing the hydrants for pressure and flow. Is there a plan to start updating this model yearly? What does it cost to do hydrant flow testing? Public Works Director/City Engineer Swearingen said the intent when this was scoped out with the County was to have a water model included in that work. Bolton and Menk were satisfied with these results, without doing a full city-wide modeling. They were trying to focus it on what is needed for TCAAP. Then they will focus on the booster station and the tower. The information they had, and knowing the improvements we are doing with Roseville by making those connections at the roundabout, they put that in their model and ran the numbers. One of the tables is a direct comparison from their model vs. the previous model. They didn't do any field hydrant testing. Councilmember Weber said then they say this is their recommendation but it might be wrong, based on the testing data being severely outdated. He appreciates that we can move forward with modeling and get an idea coming into it. Having a rider on there that says they could be totally wrong is very concerning when we're talking about $1.5 million for a booster station and the reduced size of the future water tower. How much would it cost to do some hydrant testing so we can verify this model before we commit to millions of dollars? Public Works Director/City Engineer Swearingen doesn't have that number off the top of his head. He would have to make some contacts with his resources to calculate that. He has seen the AE2S study since he's been here. It's a program but we haven't had the time to do this annual type of modeling, as recommended. He would like to get the pressures updated too. We have to do a constructability water model for Roseville's watermain project so we can see how to construct that trunk main without dropping the pressure within the city. That is a scope of work on his list to reach out to a consultant to give a proposal for that. He may be able to lump in some hydrant testing. Councilmember Weber said he would like to shore up this data a little more before we commit a ton of money. Mayor Grant asked how long Public Works Director/City Engineer Swearingen would need to validate the numbers.