2014_0224_CCpacket - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

f�� � REQUEST FOR COUNCIL ACTION Department Approval rl��-- Date: 2/24/14 Item No.: 14 . d City Manager Approval � 97� Item Description: Discuss Winter Weather Related Public Warks Issues BACKGROUND Staff has been receiving calls regarding frozen water service lines since the last week of January. To date we have been notified of 45 properties that have had this issue throughout Roseville. We continue to get additional calls daily with new frozen lines. Initially homeowners were having a difficult time finding vendors with the capabiliry to provide thawing services and when they did there were long waiting lists. This continues to be an issue today. A few homeowners that were able to get a vendor to respond reported that the attempt to thaw their line was unsuccessful and were left with a large bill and no water. Many properties have been without water service for days. To assist residents, city staff began coordinating the thawing of the service lines the first week of February after finding two vendors that could respond to at the city's request. They also are working far many different cities and are not able to provide thawing in Roseville on a daily basis. The City has a hot water thawing machine that is successful in less than 50% of the attempts at thawing the lines. We have been attempting this method prior to calling in private welder thawing. The majority of the frozen services are long side water services (due to the water main being 10 feet from the center of the street) indicating the freezing is occurring under the street where frost is driven deeper by traffic and lack of snow cover to insulate. Many cities throughout the Metro area and Minnesota continue to have frozen service issues. They handle the issue in many different ways from leaving it to the property owner to the city providing the thawing at no cost. Staff will have information on the costs to date for the discussion at the meeting. Every service line is different and costs vary widely depending on the length and method required. This is a very unusual year and something we have not experienced to this level in the past 30 plus years. POLICY OBJECTIVE The City operates and maintains a water system to provide a continuous supply of safe drinking water to its residents. City code establishes ownership of the utility service lines with the property owner. FINANCIAL IMPACTS STAFF RECOMMENDATION Staff is seeking direction on billing for the cost of the thawing of private service lines. Page 1 of 2