2022-07-27 Administrator's Report

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SEWER AND WATER Commercial Water Connection Fee Assistance At the last City Council meeting, the Council voted to extend the program through the end of 2023. The program offers half-priced hook-up charges for businesses hooking to city water. Wellhead Protection Plan The Minnesota Department of Health held a kick-off meeting with city staff and consultants for the implementation of the cityÓs Part-2 Wellhead Protection Plan. The group reviewed items in the documents and the timelines associated with various activities. Staff will be following up on the action items over the course of the next few months. Well #2 Repairs The cityÓs primary well (Well #2) started having some electrical problems a few months ago. Several weeks ago, those problems got worse and ended up necessitating having the 14-year old pump and motor replaced, along with the Variable Frequency Drive which runs the motor. In total, costs for the replacement of these components amounted to just under $25,000. City staff made the decision to replace these elements in short order, without bringing them before the council for a number of reasons. First, having the cityÓs primary well out of service during the heat of the summer, is not a desireable situation. Secondly, some of the parts were in and out of back-order status and staff felt it wise to move while they were available on a timely basis. We are happy to report that, during this outage, our redundant systems performed very well. The cityÓs secondary well (Well #1) was able to keep up and the chemical and monitoring equipment at that well performed as expected. Additional redundancies, in our two interconnections to the Lino Lakes water system were double checked and stood at the ready. However, they were never needed, due to the adjustments made by our public works department and the performance of our back-up well. This situation was a reminder of the many things that go on behind the scenes to ensure our sewer and water customers have reliable and safe service. Our staff and built-in redundant systems performed well and we were glad to have them both at the ready.