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Home My WebLink About1995-03-29 TranscriptionMarch 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 1 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session 6:30 PM Council: Horow, Baker, Kubby, Lehman, Nov, Throg. Absent: Pigott. Staff: Atkins, Woito, Ogren, Moreno, Schmadeke, Elias Karr, Sweeting, Meacham. Tapes: 95-47, all, 95-48, Side 1. Water Forum Horow/ May we start now. All right. Welcome to our Water and Wastewater Discussion Forum and Call In Program. The purpose of this evenings program is to discuss many of the issues raised during recent p.h.s and subsequent meetings concerning proposed plans for wastewater treatment and the construction of a new water treatment plant. A detailed report was prepared for city council and the information from this report will be discussed by the panel members this evening prior to any questions coming in from you either by phone or by those here in the audience. As the panelists review various aspects of water and wastewater issues, please feel free to call the number you will see on your screen. This number will show up between now and 8:30. That is the end of the program. The telephone number is 356-5209. That is 356-5209. Someone will answer the phone. Please explain to them as succinctly as possible your question. The questions will be written down and distributed to the members of the panel for their answer and for further elaboration. And those of you in the audience, please feel free to write down your questions. Someone will collect them and they will be distributed to the panel. Please call in your questions and we will do our best to answer all of those on the air. Thank you and now to our panel. Our panel is Dave Elias, our Wastewater Superintendent; Ed Moreno, Water Superintendent; Ralph Russell, H.R. Green; Chuck Meyer, Stanley Consultants; and Steve Arkins, City Manager; and Chuck Schmadeke, Department of Public Works. Atkins/ Thank you, Susan. We would like to begin, as Susan pointed out, with a brief overview of many of the questions that have been raised during the public discussions that have occurred with respect to the proposed wastewater treatment and water treatment plant construction projects. And so we can get right into it, our first speaker is going to be Dave Elias, who is out Wastewater Superintendent. David. David Elias/ I would like to first address a little bit about how we got to this point in requiring, from my presentation Thisrepresents only areasonsbly accurate transcription ofthelowa City councilmeeting of March 29, 1995, WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 2 anyway, the issue on the wastewater treatment plant and those facilities. I would like to talk a little bit about how we got to this point in Iowa City and what it is that we are required to do from here. First of all we have to realize the basic wastewater issue has been and always has been co~umunity health. We need to protect our environment and the city that we live in. And so that is the reason why the city has installed the many facilities that they have. We have sewers that have been installed throughout the city; treatment facilities in order to protect us from such things as cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and many other diseases that we fell are far removed from us today. To keep pace with world news we really have been noticing that those are not so far away from us. The city has installed a large infrastructure to deal with wastewater as it has with water as well. This has been under construction for the last 100 years in Iowa City. We now have around 200 miles of pipe just for wastewater collection. We have over a dozen pumping stations in different parts of the towns in order to get it to the major treatment facilities that we have. We have two treatment facilities right now. Now these changes or these project facilities that we have built in Iowa City, this is just sort of a summary of projects that we have done. These date back to 1936 when the first treatment plant went in. The sewers represented here and the lift station are just the last thirty years. The most recent ones. The reason that we have had to do these is there is two reasons actually. #1 is the density of population in Iowa City, of course, has been increasing. This chart, this kind of gives us a real quick glimpse of what the population has done here in the last approximately 130-140 years. So we see yes things have changed. So we have to keep pace with that if we want to maintain those same basic health standards. The other reason that things have changed is because we as people in the community have come to desire and demand a higher level of service, a higher level of protection from those sorts of dangers that we may experience. Now the choices that we make are driven by two basic factors as well. #1 of course would be the public's demand for health and somewhat for prosperity. We want to keep our community going. We want to be able to live a satisfying life in this community. That requires an economic base and also a health base. The other factor that really pushes us and drives us in these areas are government requirements that also are for our own benefit. At least they seem to be pushing for health. Whether they are involved in our prosperity that is anybody's guess, I guess. Health and prosperity sometimes though seem to be at the opposite end to the spectrum. You can't have both when you are talking about This representsonlyareasonablyaccuratetranscrlption ofthelowa City council meeting of March 29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 3 a $40-50-90 million project. At least sometimes it appears that way to the public. Sometimes it appears that way to the public, not always to the public, but that is probably the main reason why the government steps in and legislates those sort of things for us. So presently it appears that the government is in the driver's seat with wastewater projects. That has been a fact because of the Clean Water Act since roughly about the 1970's The city has been required to do many environmental projects because of that legislation. We have separated storm water and sanitary sewers so that we don't have sewers inundated. We have constructed relief sewers so that when we do have excess water coming in it doesl~'t leave the sewer and go into the community into the streets and then we have done many treatment improvements. The current requirement for us, based on what the government has told us, is for ammonia removal. Let me just put up a slide, some pictures here. These are taken from the north wastewater treatment plant. This was built in 1935 and 1936. It was a very effective plant for what was required at those times. This treatment plant can no longer meet the standards the government is asking us and we would have to say also that the public at large, as being presented by the government, is asking for us to do now. So the main point that we are looking for to accomplish now would be ammonia removal. This issue has actually been on the burner with environmental regulations since the early 1980's. It has been spurred on by that Clean Water Act that has been pushed closer and closer to Iowa City. many communities in Iowa have already addressed this issue. There are many left to do it and we are one of them. Well, in trying to figure out just how we should address this particular issue, we have considered many options and in doing that we have to the extent of the project that needs to be handled. This represents the drainage areas for the various wastewater treatment plants in Iowa City. I realize that this slide is made kind of hard to read but the city is in the middle. This is Melrose Avenue coming out here, Highway 6 coming down here, 1-80 at the top. The north treatment plant right now is right in the middle of this map and the south treatment plant is down here. So we have looked at many different options and how to overcome the current problem that we have been handed. We have looked at conventional treatment, biological processes, and many different combinations. We will talk about those a little bit. We have looked at some innovative approaches as well. Biological and chemical or physical processes. So I would like to just think about a little bit some of those options that we have considered. First of all we looked at these unusual or innovative Thisrepresents only areesonably accurate transcription ofthelowa City council meeting of March 29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 4 processes because we thought they would be useful in the environment at large. For example, one option that we considered was tree farming. We talked to Lou Licht. He reviewed the site at the south plant. It looked like if we could actually utilize the ammonia for constructing or for growing additional biomass that was useful, that maybe we would have an economic recovery from that. Unfortunately Professor Licht's assessment of the site, he said it did not lend itself to that process because the ground water is already very high there so we don't have room for flowing it. The topography down there is very flat. So, unfortunately, we were not able to proceed any further with the commitment we had already made to this location at the south plant and then clearly in the urban area in town there was no area for a tree farming. Now the fact that we have to select a site well in advance of any changes is due to the fact that sewers have to primarily run by gravity to the lowest end. So in this drainage area that is how we have more or less ended up at that south location. Another consideration that we looked at was wetlands treatment. That has become very popular in some parts of the country. We looked at it for Iowa City. We had a national expert come in and assess our possibilities there and a conclusion was we would eventually have to take in about 1500 acres of land for treatment in order to perform this process. So it was large land acquisition that would be over two square miles of farm land that would most likely be taken out of production or areas along the river. It also had a very high construction cost because for 1500 acres of land that would be a very complicated arrangement for directing 10 to 18 million gallons through that system on a daily basis. And then also, the bottom line was we found that the climate in Iowa, Iowa City, is actually too cold for this process to work for 12 months out of the year. And so that process also was ruled out. So we continued to look for other ways we might be able to treat 10-18 million gallons of water for the next 20 years. So we looked at chemical or phy3ical process of break point chlorination. Now, it technically feasibly can be done. We know that we have the two treatment plants. We could do it at one or the other or both. But there are some costs that would be required with that. The capital cost is relatively low but the operational costs are quite unpredictable because of the weather patterns that dictate how much chlorine. The river flows would dictate how often we would be required to use that chlorine. Actually we have found that we would still, on the basis of the last 20 years data from the Army Corp of Engineers, we would still be required to use break point chlorination in 55% of the time. So it would have relatively Thisrepresents only areasonably accurate transcription ofthelowa City council meeting of March29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 5 high continuous operation cost. it would also have a very high risk for accidental chemical discharge into the atmosphere in the vicinity of populated areas. At the high end of the spectrum we could be bringing into town 1500 tons of chlorine each year. That would be 150 truck loads. So we thought at least we should consider what biological treatment might also be able to do for us. And so we performed an in depth evaluation of what we could do at the two treatment plants as they are right now and what it would take for the next few years. We did that by looking at the north plant. There it is very confined area. The south plant was designed for expansion. So we have elected to go further with expansion of ¥reatment at the south plant. To do that we would require an interceptor between, a large diameter interceptor, between the two plants. The top half of it would be 84 inches in diameter. The bottom half, the south end, would be 96 inches in diameter carrying sewage from the north site down to the south site with an intermediate pumping station in between. We found that that approach would give us the least long range impact on the environment. It would give us the most reliable treatment system. And outside of chemical treatment which carry many high risks for the public, it was the lowest cost process that we could select. So this process would be a biological process strictly. We will be using break point chlorination to supplement biological process at the north plant because we will not be designing this plant in order to accommodate all of the sewage. So the north plant would still remain in service for a number of years to come and we will be using the break point chlorination process in order to back up that biological process so that we don't violate standards. The south plant though has room for expansion. The darker lines here would be the first range of expansion. The dotted lines would be the second phase the may come in possible up to 20 years later. so we feel that that is an approach that is most economical and most effectively protects the community and the environment. So I guess that will be it for me. Atkins/ Thank you, David. Next speaker will be Ed Moreno. He is our Water Superintendent. Ed Moreno/ Similar to Dave, I think it is important to kind of set a background for the water project and how we got to where we are right now. And in order to do that what I would like to do is share with you a little background about our existing facility and then also just show a very quick short slide presentation about some of the problems and issues that we have ha to address lately and then go into our future a little Thlsrepresents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofthelowa City council meeting of March 29, 1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 6 bit and some of the things that we have been looking at. Could someone help me w~th that. We will just start with the first one and while that is up I will kind of describe what the Iowa City water system is like. As Dave was saying, we have got about 225 miles of water main going throughout Iowa City. We are in the 100 year club. We have got a water main that is well over 100 years old in the city. Currently we have got two water treatment plants. They are located at the corner of Bloomington and Madison and I think during the flood of 1993 everybody found out exactly where they are located. One of the plants that we have there we call the old plant. It has remnants or portions that were constructed in 1882 and that is part of the problem and some of the issues that we have to deal with. The second plant that we call the new plant was constructed in 1963 and upgraded in 1972. Can we show the first slide here. I always like to show this slide here. Many of you will recognize this. This here is the farewell to Iowa City from a well known cartoonist, Berk Breathed, and you can see Opus and the little blond haired boy here lamenting what they are going to miss about Iowa City and the punch line there is in the very end. They talk about the Library we will miss and Barbara's Bakery, etc, the Pentacrest. But in the very end they say, yes, I will miss everything about Iowa City, everything except the water. The water tastes like Spic and Span. And I think that in Iowa City this is our legacy and the legacy of Iowa City is related very much to the facilities that I just described and the water source that we have, Our primary source being the Iowa River. So when I show real quickly some of the issues that we have been addressing in the very short time that I have been here and as you well know if you have been in Iowa City we have actually been addressing these for decades and decades. So, this is some of our more recent press here and we will kind of illustrate our issue through that. This here is a fish kill along the Iowa River and you can see the size of the fish there and some of the issues that must have been going on with the river that would cause something like this. Again, that is our primary water source. This here is water woes, city water woes. This was a period of time about 1989 and at that time as you recall there was two years of drought in '88 and '89 and when we got a little bit of rainfall there was quite a bit of foam on the river and there was quite a bit of difficulty at the Iowa City Water Plant treating that water. As you can see here, following that, the difficulty we had, there is some headlines: Is That Water, Is That Apple Juice. You may recall the water during this time period, 1989 approximately, the water coming our of the water treatment plant had a yellowish Thisrepresents only ereosonably accurate transcription ofthelowa City council meeting of March 29, 1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 7 tinge to it and if was very difficult to treat with our existing facility. Following the drought there was very little run off into the Iowa River from the water shed that extends all the way up into north central Iowa. But when the rains began to fall what occurred was an influx of contaminants, in particular nitrates, that flowed down the river and caused us to see elevated nitrate levels higher than we have ever seen. And as you can see from these headlines, this is 1990, we were unable to keep the water going out of the plant below the safety level for nitrates and we went public with it. Nitrate is a acute contaminant and the contaminant, the risk class for this is infants, six months and younger. And at that time there was some evidence that pregnant mothers may be affected also and we let that information out and you can see the lines at the clean water machine and a very intense time for us. It was also a time it became very clear to us that we had to start planning for the future to make some changes, some major changes and at this time is when we began our Comprehensive Facility Plan that we are now working in. We continue here. This is public notification. We were told that we did not get out quickly enough and at that time it also became clear to is that we needed to be more public about what was going on down at the Water Plant. This was the faucets. They were identifying the contaminant levels. The limit is 45 parts per million. As nitrate you can see it was being tracked down to 37 at this time. It kind of gave us an indication of the difficulty we were going to have and were having in communicating the risk of this contaminant and of course, there is many more that we need to communicate. This here goes into 1993 and you can see the flood there and the issues that we had. We had a great cooperation with the Corp of Engineers to keep the water out of our plant but it was nick and tuck for at least 45 days and again that was a time period when most people found out exactly where we were located. And again, I think it kind of assisted or gave more evidence of the need for us to move on our planning. And then as we continue here we can see where this is a notification for crytospuridium. There was information coming out that said crytospuridium was in most of the surface waters of the U.S. and this was our effort to communicate that to our citizenry, the potential in the Iowa River and that potential is in all surface waters in the U.S. And we continue here going into the Comprehensive Water Plan and some of the issue of rate structures, financing, that type of interaction with the public. More right there. And there is the last water forum in February. Okay, why don't we stop there and let me continue on with another tact here. So in 1990 we began our Comprehensive This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of March 29, 1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 8 water Facility Planning and at that time you may recall we were looking at our existing water treatment plant and what we could do with that and also looking for new water sources and existing water sources in the area and the water sources in the area are, of course, the Iowa River, also known as the Jordan Aquifer and the Silurian Aquifer and in 1990 we decided also to look at some water sources, some ground waters that were south of Iowa City. So we looked in a area about 5-10 miles south of Iowa City in Johnson County and did an extensive search at that time for ground water. When looking for ground water you can see because of some of the issues that are here with the river water. Getting away from some of the bacterial problems, some of the run off problems from the agriculture community that is in the water shed up above us and as you may recall, that search was not fruitful for us and we learned quite a bit also from it about the reaction to getting water resources outside of the Iowa City area. So at that time, when we discovered that we were not going to be able to get the quantity of water that we needed for Iowa City, we extended our search in another direction and that was back to the water sources that we knew about. Again, the Iowa River, the Silurian Aquifer and the Jordan Aquifer and that is where we are right now. In that search we began looking at what would serve us best and there are many issues that we need to look at inside of that. One key thing is to have a high quality water up front. First thing. Very important and we need to look at the vulnerability of different sites in the area and as we did that we looked to get above 1-80, north of 1-80. We also looked to get into these aquifers, the Jordan and Silurian and also, at that time, looked to get water from the Iowa River. And we identified a site that is north on Dubuque Street and we have a map of it over here. We will look at that a little later and we were also able later on to identify sands and gravel in that area that will allow us to remove even more ground water from that area and it was quite a find. It was a very good find for us. So, in looking at the site there has been a lot of discussion about the site and why we picked this site and those are the reasons for that. It is less vulnerable than other sites because the interstate is running south of it. There is water in that site from those different sources and also from the alluvial in that area and we will try to draw as much water as we can from that. Also it is close to the city. It is located outside of the flood plain in the area that we want to construct our water treatment plant which we discovered is very important for us after the flood. Those are the primary reasons for using that site° There were other sites that were mentioned in some of the Thisrepresents only a reasonably accurate transcription ofthelowe City council meeting of March 29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 9 questions that were brought to us such as utilizing the Airport site or going up to the Coralville Reservoir. One other piece about that site that is valuable is that their is a dam located at the Iowa River and power Company that maintains a pool at that site so that we constantly have a certain amount of water going into either river intake or the ~echarging the alluvial sands in that area and that is very important0 That is one thing that is not available down south in the Airport site and it is very important to have that. In addition, looking at the Airport site as a potential site, it is downstream from the wastewater discharges and also along the river bank there is a lot of landfill area. So we did not believe that that is a very good site for the water treatment plant at the Airport. Another technical issue or idea that was brought forth in some of the public discussion earlier was a technically called aquifer storage and recovery. Aquifer storage and recovery is a technology that is being utilized in certain areas of the U.S., primarily the east coast and the west coats and what people are doing there is they are taking water, treated water, and they are injecting it into the ground into an aquifer and storing it in there and they can store billions of gallons and store it there for a period of time and draw it back when they deem necessary and people have been using that in certain areas to help them to store water so that they do not need to produce excess waters for peaking conditions of their plant. Also they have used it to assist in minimizing expansions on their existing facilities. Also they use it for improving water quality. Once it is injected it has been found that it could improve to come back. In Iowa this technology has not been proven yet. But there is indication that there are good possibilities with it. So currently Des Moines Water Works is in the midst of a pilot project to utilize the Jordan Aquifer as a storage aquifer for their treated water and we have been fortunate to be in communication with them and be on their peer review group for their project and we will be watching very closely to see the success of their project and there are a lot of issues, technical, regulatory issues that are related to this that hopefully they will pave the way for us to look at it more specifically later on. so, at this time, we are still looking at ASR and we are watching Des Moines and working with them very closely. I talked a little bit about the crytospuridium notification. What we have ~oticed in the water industry.is that we use to be a silent industry. We use to be real quiet and everything was fine, don't worry about it, turn the tap on and everything was handled. What we found is people know more about water than ever before and it has been necessary for us Thisrepresents only e reasonably accurate transcription ofthe Iowa City council meeting of March 29,1995. W$032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 10 to go public with what is going on at the water plant and also even to create a position that would allow us to do that. And our notification on cryptospuridium was an effort to inform our citizenry of some of the risks that are out there so they can take action on their own if they choose to. So they would have knowledge to proceed accordingly. That is all I have for now~ I will turn it back to Steve. Atkins/ Okay, thank you, Ed. If you don't mind I will just speak from my chair and I will summarize rather quickly the section that I am going to be discussing with you is the issue of financing options for both the water and wastewater treatment project. One of the things we enjoy in Iowa City is the excellent financial health with respect to the local government and I think I think I can say without equivocation that we have as many financing options for these projects as there are opinions. But there are certain elements that affect the financing of projects, capital projects, this size. For example, if the city, when it ultimately settles in on its financing plan, chooses to borrow moneys, bonds, debt which are interchangeable terms, there must be a means by which to repay that debt. And at this point in time under Iowa law there are really only three alternatives. The first alternative is the property tax; the second is revenues for the systems, that is the users of water and sewer; and the third is sales tax. In Iowa, under the constitution, local governments, while we do enjoy Home Rule, tax policy and the taxes and the fees that we have available to us to utilize are regulated by the state. That simply spoken is why there is not an extensive list of financing options available to us. To date we have chosen the alternative and it appears to be the one that is financially the most sound, is that the system, that is the moneys produced by the water and sewer users would be available to finance the capital projects. And the reasons are pretty straight forward. If you use the system, you pay for it. The property tax, for example in our community, substantial amounts of property, close to a third is tax exempt. Yet they are water and sewer users. The sales tax is not now available to us. It would require referendum and our most current estimate is that if the referendum were approved for the city, it would generate about $4.5 million per year which is approximately half of the debt coverage if in fact we were to borrow the full amounts. You have the ability in financing to borrow or to accumulate cash. And accumulation of cash is nothing more than a set aside similar to a savings account. There are many pros and cons for the use of either debt or the set aside. Again, for example, the longer you wait This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of March 29, 1995, WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page the more it will cost and it is just simply the results of inflation. If you borrow you have to pay someone to borrow the money and thereby you have to pay an interest charge, thereby adding to the cost. There are other policy issues and the financing is substantial a policy decision that the council will ultimately make. What is the obligation of a future generation, for example, if they are paying through debt to finance these capital improvements. Does this generation pay for it and have the other enjoy the benefit of it? When will the project be constructed. And the word when is with some emphasis. The regulatory compliance process of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources establishes standards. We have an obligation to comply with those standards. Both David and Ed mentioned those in very general terms to you. There is an unpredictable nature to the regulatory process. We experienced it in 1990. We constructed a sewer project, the South Treatment Plant, and just at the time of turn on of that plant becoming available to our community, the federal government changed the regulations. At that time our wastewater project was planned for the year 2000. The federal EPA changed their regulations and advised us that that would no longer be acceptable and that we had to deal with the issue of ammonia standards sooner than later. The water project does have scheduling latitude. And I am mentioning scheduling and construction in the similar comments that I am making with finance because they do fit hand and glove. Our water plant, as pointed out to you, has some 100 year old facilities, is vulnerable and we ill likely, if we continue to operate that plant for anything in the near term, 3-5 years. We will make an investment in the old plant to meet the federal regulations. The question becomes how much do we invest in the old facility in order to satisfy our compliance obligations and thereby, our environmental obligations to the state and federal government. There are new regulations with respect to water quality. Scheduling delays are seen by some as being non-compliant. That is you are postponing your obligation to deal with the environmental issues of water and wastewater. That also is a policy matter. Others say that there is a public health risk. Again, an issue of what is your perspective on these projects. the question the community ultimately has to answer from a financing standpoint on the projects they choose to authorize is what level of risk do we choose to assume. I would like to make a little note on the compliance. Recently the federal government, President Clinton signed the Unfunded Mandates Act. As a council member pointed out to me just the other evening, there is no such thing as unfunded mandates. Somebody Tillsrepresents only areasonably accurate transcription ofthelowa City council meeting of March 29,1995. W$032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 12 pays. Now we prefer having some other governmental agency at least contribute but somebody does pay. That law does not eliminate our current responsibilities. It is not retroactive. That law deals with future mandates and that law has a threshold that is the amount of money that is likely cost will trigger an obligation on the part of Congress to vote on that particular mandate. It is not a free ride and it does not guarantee funding for future projects. It does change the whole perspective with respect to the federal governments attitude towards local governments. That at least a procedural vote on the part of Congress is required before an obligation is put forth in the form of a mandate. There are many options. There are many players. There are many opinions. And the obligation that we have in both of these projects, both from our obligations to the federal government, the community is striking some sort of a balance. With that I will conclude my financial commentary and we will look forward to some questions. I know we have had some calls° Craig, do you want to bring those over to us. If you wouldn't mind we will just get started with calls that are coming it. Q: Why not locate the Jordan and Silurian wells on the east and south sides of Iowa City where the growth is? Moreno/ When we first started our plan, we looked at that as a possibility of stringing Silurian wells out towards the east just south of the interstate. And what we decided to do is to bring them closer onto the site and go south into is to see what the possibility of a Silurian Aquifer was inside of the Iowa City area. It is a possibility that we could go out east and south in Iowa City in the future. At this time our intention is to test the aquifer in that area, our existing site, and see what issues or problems there may be with interference in that area. And depending on those results we may reinvestigate or shift from that point. One thing about our project is it has been kind of a iterative process and as Steve was saying, it is, you know, in the compliance scheme of things I guess we have been allowed to continue to look at a lot of different possibilities and so we will continue to do that and so I see that as a possibility. Atkins/ All done? Moreno/ Yeah. Atklns/ Not done yet. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of March 29, 1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 13 Q: Why has the water pressure decreased so much in the past six months? Ed- Moreno/ Well the water pressure is another issue that we are attempting to address with this project. The water pressure in certain parts of town is low and in Iowa City we have a unique system in which we have what we call day time and night time pressure. Our system if you will look around you will recognize there are no elevated storage tanks in the city. The only one is located at University Hospitals and that is part of the University of Iowa system which is separate from ours. Our tanks are underground storage tanks, 2 million gallon storage tanks. One is located at Sycamore just south of the Sycamore Mall. One is located on Rochester across from the HyVee and a little bit towards the east and the west one is located on Emerald Drive. These tanks function as independent pumping stations and as the city grows we adjust the pressures at those and at the primary hub of pressure which is the existing water treatment plant. As we continue to grow there will continue to be more pressure problems and again those are some of the issues that we hope to address with the new facility, the new distribution improvements and also by upgrading the existing storage tanks and pumping systems as soon as we can. So, we will make adjustments for that. Atkins/ Could it possibly be there may be some localized problem for this particular caller? Moreno/ Yeah, it is possible. It could be an internal problem. Atkins/ Why I mention that, those of you that are calling in and we will try to get to everyone's question. If you need more information please call back and give your name and number, we may not be able to get it on this program. Someone from the city staff can call you back and discuss it in a little ore detail. If you are willing to do that, when you call in, leave your name and number and we will call you back. Not tonight but some time in the next day or so. because if, for example, this is a localized problem, we would like to know about it and be able to deal with it. Q: Chuck, has value engineering, which I think we should explain to the audience, looked into phasing the construction of the water treatment plant? Chuck Schmadeke/ First let me explain value engineering. Value engineering is a process by which the city hired another Thisrepresents only areasonably accurate transcription ofthelowa City council meeting of March 29, 1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 14 independent engineering consultant to look at the design work that has been completed by our primary consultant, Howard R. Green Company. The value engineering process only looks at the design elements that have been completed to date. our design engineers charge was not to look at phasing of the construction but to design a water treatment and source facility. The value engineer study, then, was to look at that design and value that and look for ways to save money. As far as phasing of the construction of the project, I think city staff and city council working together can determine whether that is an advisable thing to do independent of our engineering consultants. Atkins/ Okay, thank you, Chuck. Another one for you, Ed- Q: How is water in the aquifer storage system chlorinated? CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 95-48 SIDE storage, what risk for conversion to hazardous substances. You got the drift of that. Moreno/ Sort of. I believe that the question is asking about disinfection by-products in the aquifer storage and recovery technology. And what Des Moines is looking at and what we would be looking at would be injecting treated water that would be disinfected with chlorine into the ground and studies have shown that-Let me go back. When you inject chlorine into treated water there is the possibility of forming trihelomethane which is a disinfection by-product. So the water reacts with organics that may be in the water or other constituents to form a regulated contaminate. I call it disinfection by-product. There have been studies that have shown that when you inject water into an aquifer for a period of time, when you bring it back out it needs very little treatment. Usually a tap of chlorine and it is ready to put into the system and it has also shown that the disinfection by-products that could be formed could be reduced after it has been stored into that aquifer. I think that is what the question was. Arkins/ Okay, if not, the caller can call back and we will try to elaborate some more for them. Next one we have is- Q: can the city petition the federal government to relax wastewater regulations? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of March 29, 1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 15 I think there are maybe two parts to that. David, I may call upon you for one. Can we petition the federal government? The answer is yes. However, in Iowa, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources is the administrative agency enforcement arm of the EPA with respect to wastewater regulation. This is clearly a policy question and would be subject, I think, to substantial debate because there are those that believe that we should not relax those regulations that we have, certain environmental obligations. I am sure there are going to be others that do not share that decision or opinion. The question of can we petition the higher governmental agency, I think the answer is yes. Is there anything you need to add, David? Elias/ I would say the most likely recourse would be through legal means in order to address that situation because they do represent laws that are on the books and have been applied to many communities already and for one community or one state to have a variance or waiver would require adjustment in EPA's laws. Atkins/ Next question for Ed: Q: The old Coralville Dam is in bad shape, particularly at the east end. What are the plans for dealing with this? Schmadeke/ The Coralville Dam was a power dam that was owned by IIGE for many years and in the late 1960's they transferred ownership to Johnson County. Johnson County has not maintained the dam since they have taken over ownership. That dam is very important to the City of Iowa City with its new water source along the river. The pool of water that the dam creates enhances our ability to draw waters from the alluvial wells that we propose to construct on the water plant site. So, the city wished to acquire that dam from Johnson County and in so doing we will make improvements to the dam to make it structurally sound and the problems that are existing on both ends of the dam at this time will be corrected. Atkins/ Anything you want to add? Ralph? Okay. A little longer one so bear with me: Q: I have a copy of a newspaper article that states that 50% of the sewage water and 25% of the sewer solids passing through the North Liberty Sewer Plant is not treated. This raw sewage is dumped into a creek that flows into the Iowa River just down stream from the Butler Bridge and just upstream from This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of March 29, 1995, W$032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 16 the several wells that are proposed along the Iowa River. Does this worry your engineers who do not have to drink this water? Okay, engineers- Schmadeke/ I am not aware that that condition exists and if it does exist, its in violation of the current law and of course, we are concerned about that. And I think if it is true that it will be corrected by the state. Arkins/ Anything else? Q: Could you explain more about the value of the site due to the soil conditions. Ed- Excuse me, that is water. Moreno/ I talked about the issues with the Iowa River. What our intention is to 1-get better water up front and 2-match it with the state of the art water treatment facility. The value of that site is related to the source and also to the ability to construct that facility on it. In particular, the alluvial sands. As you look at that site you will recognize there is a sand pit there and that sand, those sands and gravel, go down about anywhere between 25-50 feet deep and those sands will naturally filter the Iowa River water that we can then use to treat further and then distribute through our distribution system. Arkins/ Okay. Here is one I like- Q: What is the national average cost per gallon to produce water? I don't know, does anybody? I am sorry, we just don't have that information. If the caller wants to leave a name and number we will look it up for them if we can discover that. A second question- Q: What is the source of moneys used to purchase the land for the water plant? The moneys to purchase that land come from debt, the General Obligation debt, to be retired by water rates. We chose to utilize our GO capacity which means we have a higher rated bond to provide the moneys to purchase the water plant site. The debt, that is the money borrowed, will be repaid by water charges. Q: I have heard the city can save more than $1 million if they Thlsrepresentsonly a reasonably accuratetranscription ofthelowa Citycouncil meeting of March29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 17 will not take approximately 18 acres of land lying along Dubuque Street from KXIC towers to the Butler Bridge. The developer states he will build housing for the elderly, a gas station, convenience store, office buildings on this 18 acres and bring half million dollars a year in taxes to help pay for the plant. Question, will the city pursue this $1 million savings on this land? I think there is two things. One is I have no knowledge of the $1 million savings. At least it has not been proposed to us. Secondly, I will be looking at our City Attorney in the audience. The land is currently in litigation. Is it appropriate to comment further on that? Give a nod of your head so I can tell. Woito/ (Can't hear). Atkins/ Okay, from a land use-We will do our best to answer that. Okay. Again, the dollar figures, I don't have knowledge of that. Q: Will the city let the developer privatize this land and save the tax payers millions of dollars to lower the sewer and water increases that we are already being affected by? First of all, the property taxes are not being utilized to pay for water and sewer° It is the water and sewer users. At least that is the proposal at this time. Is there anything you can answer on the 18 acres. I am not so sure- Schmadeke/ I could make a comment on that. The 18 acres in question is the area adjacent to Dubuque Street. There is bedrock on that particular 18 acres. We ~¢ould like to place the plant itself on that bedrock/ By so doing we can save several million dollars in construction costs because we can put the foundation of the plant itself on the bedrock° The cost for the land would not-we could not recover the several million dollars that we would save by constructing the facility on the bedrock. So I don't think the city is willing to give up that 18 acres. Atkins/ Next question- Q: Is the proposed new plant and I assuming they mean water plant, capable of removing herbicides and contaminants that we hear about in the news.? Thisrepresents only a masonably accurate transcription ofthelowa City council meeting of March 29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 18 I guess maybe both of you because you both have the same obligation. Or Ed more? Moreno/ I think they are talking about the water plant. The water treatment plant will be designed to remove some herbicides and pesticides and that will be through a unit process called filtration. There will be granular activated carbon which- Atkins/ Ed, can I hold you for one second? There is a follow up question. You may want to roll it together: Q: What are the different chemicals the we use to treat the water? Moreno/ Okay. So the plant that we are proposing, a state of the art water treatment plant, will be a much different from our existing facility. 1-It will have a better source up front being coming from both the alluvial aquifer, also from Silurian and Jordan wells and partially from the Iowa River. But much less than we currently have right now. The value of the alluvial in that area is that it naturally filters and has been shown to remove peak levels of contaminants such as herbicides and pesticides. So, 1-the quality coming into this water treatment plant will be better than we have seen from our existing raw water source. The water treatment plant will have a treatment processes that will start our with the river component with a sedimentation stage which will remove dirt, bacterial. Following that it will go into what is called lime softening which will reduce some of the hardness but most importantly will have a solids contact in it that will help remove some organics and possibly a little bit of the herbicides and pesticides. And following that it will be filtered by a filtration system that includes granular activated carbon and some of you may have this at home on your faucets right now. And that will help to remove more. Following that it will be disinfected with chlorine and we are looking at the possibility of a different chlorination process. So, it will be different and yeah, there will be some removal in the water treatment plant. Atkins/ Okay. Another call in question: Q: Do large water users with sprinkler systems pay for the required access capacity? I am not real sure how to'answer that caller,s question. Yes, you do pay for obviously use of your water. If this is a Thisrepresents only areasonably accuratetranscription oftholowa City council meeting of Marsh 29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 19 second meter question, I am not real sure how to answer that question. If the caller is listening, could you call back and clarify that one so we could have it back up and we will set that one aside. Q: If chlorine is believed to be a cancer causing, will you continue to use it at the new plant? And a follow up question- Q: Is o-zone being considered as a disinfectant? Moreno/ That is a good question. The chlorinati0n process can create again what I call disinfection by-products that are contaminants that have been shown to cause cancer when they react with organics that are in the water. Again, we are looking at in the future is improving our water first. Secondly, removing ore organics so by the time we do introduce chlorine to the water, the formation of those contaminants would be minimized. So, as far as ozonation is concerned, the water treatment plant will be designed so that we could add ozonation if we choose to later. At this time we believe that we can create the water that will be high quality enough so that the disinfection by-products will not be a problem. Arkins/ Okay, this is probably for Ed or Ralph- Q: Will the wells for the new water plant impact the private wells around the plant? Ralph Russell/ As Ed mentioned earlier, one of the first things that will be done in this project is actually set in motion already, will be to construct one Silurian well at the plant near the river, the northwest side of the plant site. That first Silurian well be used as a test well. The well will be pumped for an extended period of time. We have made contact with 9-10 private well owners in the area and have made 9rrangement with them to get access to their well so we can measure the impact of pumping the city's first well on the private wells in the area. That network of 9-10 wells is mostly north and east of the proposed plant site. The information that will be assembled during that pump test-By the way, in addition to the 9 wells that will be monitored off site, we are constructing an additional 8 monitoring wells on the plant site. Water levels in those wells will be monitored during pumping of this test well. All of that information will be analyzed and interpreted, modeling will be done to Thisrepresents only areasonably accurate transcription ofthelewa City council meeting of March 29, 1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 20 determine as much as we can about that aquifer in that part of the city. That information then will be used to determine where additional wells are located. You have seen a lot of maps as part of the planning process so far. Those maps show proposed locations for wells. Those are the best locations that we could come up with at this point in time. We are constantly assembling additional information and the information that will be assembled during the pump test will go a long way for determining what impact pumping one, two, three, or four wells or any number of wells will have on existing water users. Atkins/ We have obviously loads of questions coming in, folks. If you see me sorting, I am trying to get those that are-many of them are very similar so we are trying to get them to come together in some fashion and get one answer for a number of questions. Ed- Q: Will the new plant have auxiliary power so the whole city doesn't lose water pressure? Schmadeke/ I can answer that. The current design does not have auxiliary power. When we were looking at the cost we felt that with University Water Plant and Coralville's water system which is independent of Iowa City's. With those two other sources in the community, we can get by without having dual power source at the plant. However, with the value engineering study, they recommended that we incorporate a dual water source and made suggestions on how to minimize the cost of that dual source. So we are taking a second look at it this time. Atkins/ Q: When a main breaks, this is a water question, how do you get the dirt out of the main? Moreno/ When a water main breaks and it is repaired, the way that the dirt is removed, if any dirt gets in it which is likely, is by flushing hydrants following the main break. So it necessary to remove dirt or air that might have gone inside the line and that is usually the standard procedure for the end of a main break. Atkins/ Q: Will the sewer plant need to meet newer tougher federal regulations over the next five years? Will it need to? Yes. Will it- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of March 29, 1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 council Work Session page 21 Elias/ We don't expect at this time any additional regulations coming out that haven't been already been addressed by past treatment processes. The ammonia issue is the only one that is currently being held out to us as a potential. Atkins/ Q: Is the pedestrian trail a part of the water plant project? Yes. And as a follow up, it is not to be financed by the water revenues. It is to be financed by general revenues. Q: What are those particles floating in the water? Water or wastewater. I won't answer that. Ed, you get this one- Moreno/ At the Water Department we get lots of calls and questions about quality, taste and odor and particles, perhaps. often times when we go out and investigate we may find a point of use device, something that malfunctioned. For the most part we don't see particles floating in the water unless it is a function of something that is occurring inside of a home. So I guess I might need to follow up on that one. Atkins/ I am not sure, we are getting a mix of audience and callers. So if you want follow up on that, again, please leave your name. Remember, at the end of the meeting we will be hanging around for a while, so we can visit with you. Wastewater, David- Q: What was the chemical content of the foam on the Iowa River? Is it treatable? Elias/ Primarily that is two sources, two materials. There is some residual material from waste as it comes through. We strive to take out 95% of the waste that comes in. We are not required to take out 100%. In fact, it is almost impossible to do. So there is some waste that does pass through the treatment plant and we are able to meet standards with what we are currently discharging at both of our plants. However, there are some biological things that remain in the river and as wastewater discharges go into the river, it sort of stirs things up and creates more bubbles. So that is just another sort of naturally occurring phenomena sometimes. Atkins/ Q: There is a fuel oil pipeline 2,000 feet long under 700 Thisrepresents only areasonably accurate transcription ofthelowa Citycouncil meeting of Msrch 29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 22 pounds of pressure along the south and east corridor of the Dubuque Street site. Will this line be removed? If not, if this line leaks, could it permanently contaminate the site? What is the cost of removal? Three questions for you. Schmadeke/ There is an oil pipeline along the south side of the property. We have had two recommendations on what to do with it. One is to move it to the south side of the highway where the Pipeline Company has an existing easement and has existing pipelines in that area. Another option is to replace the pipe with a much higher quality pipeline material which will minimize any potential for breakage. We are evaluating those two options at this time. As far as permanently contaminating the site, it could potentially contaminate one of the well sites on the property. I don't believe that it would contaminate the entire site. What is the cost of removal? The cost of the removal of any contaminates would be borne by the pipeline company. Atkins/ And there may be the cost of removing the pipe, relocating. Do you have a number for that? Schmadeke/ Off the top of my head I think to move the pipeline to the south side of the highway is about $400,000 and I believe the replace the pipeline with a higher quality of pipe is like $200,000. Atkins/ Q: What condition is the Iowa River Power Dam in and how much would the repair costs be? Russell/ The conditions of the dam is probably on the ends of the dam and some of the walkway aspects of the dam probably look worse than they are. The dam is very repairable. It needs significant repair. The dam was thoroughly inspected above the surface as well as below the surface by divers who are also engineers and there is a fairly detailed plan for repairs of the dam structure itself which I believe amount stood between $200,000-300,000. And there is an additional cost involved with replacing the trusses and walkway across the top of the dam if in fact it is used for a trail. General overall condition probably looks really worse than it is. It can very easily be repaired. Just as a follow up point in the dam I was handed a note awhile ago regarding the question that Chuck answered earlier on the dam and evidently there was some confusion in the audience regarding which dam we were talking Thisrepresents only areasonably accuratetranscription ofthelowe City council meeting of March 29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 23 about at the dam. The dam that Chuck was referring to that is really needed to flood the sands and gravel in the plant site a water field and also to create a pool of water to install a surface intake on the river is the dam that is located by the Iowa River Power Company'Restaurant. It is the old power company dam. We are not talking about the dam that forms the Coralville Reservoir. Atkins/ Q: Please detail the cost of the water and sewer projects and the financing? I think this is a call in question and I would like the caller to call back and leave their name and number and I would be happy to get back with you. We would be here for a long long time if we went through that. The general costs now is the water treatment project is approximately $50 million in 1995 dollars and the sewer or wastewater project is $41 million. The financing as now planned is through the use os user fees and until the time of whether it is bond, accumulating cash or a variety of other factors, I really can't answer that question. but if you would call back and leave your name and number, I would be happy to call you and visit with you about that one. Q: Why, when the city has grant money, don't they apply it to better water supply instead of giving it to neighborhood centers or arts and other endowments? Grant moneys that are granted to the city are I think almost without question given for specific purposes. That is, for example our CDBG Program is a grant of money from the federal government which the city council and our CCN distributes to various agencies and other worthwhile projects. Again, almost without question, it is specifically identified for certain purposes. The council is just not at liberty to take certain grant moneys and apply it to water project or sewer project. Q: In making changes in the water distribution system, how could this affect different neighborhoods during construction and after everything is completed? Schmadeke/ The construction of new piping to enhance the distribution system is primarily through either undeveloped areas or across University property. There is very little construction work that will be going on within developed residential neighborhoods. Thisrepresents only areasonably accurate transcription of ~elowa City council meeting of March 29, 1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 24 Atkins/ Q: Is there federal money available to help with the cost of building the new plant? At this time and that is for both water and wastewater, to the best of our knowledge no, there is not money being made available for grants or loans to communities having to build these new facilities. With respect to grants, I think it is almost a certainty. Federal loan programs, quite frankly, are probably of little benefit to the City of Iowa City because we can borrow the same money in the private market cheaper than we would have to pay the federal government. Right now there is no moneys available. Wastewater, David- Q: Is it possible that wastewater is warm enough to heat a greenhouse created for wetland treatment and could this be a ' 9 source of income. Obviously it could be a source of income if we can do it economically and technically. Elias/ The wastewater temperature generally through the winter months when you would want to be trying to heat a greenhouse, generally drops to around 50 degrees F. It also would be-we would have-currently we have about 10 million gallons that we would have to run through there. Different areas have used heat pumps recover energy, temperature energy, from wastewater treatment. We haven't really looked into that as far as applying it to greenhouse. Atkins/ Q: Do we need to protect our water source areas from public access? I am assuming the question is one of the source of our water supply and if that is the case the answer is yes, that limited access I am sure would have to guaranteed. Secondly, the treatment process at the plant, the security of that plant probably even more so. So the answer is yes, we would have to protect those. Q: We did get the call back on the large water users in the system and the follow up is that: is the required excess capacity in distribution system, pipes, pumps, etc. Maybe just handle the question of excess capacity at the plant. Schmadeke/ Our distribution system that Ed alluded to earlier is Thisrepresents only areasonably accuratetranscription ofthelowa Citycouncil meeting of March 29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 25 200 and some miles in length. Throughout the system we have a grid of larger pipes, twelve inch size and larger, roughly on a mile grid. A smaller grid in the d.t. area and co~mercial areas. But these pipes would provide sufficient flows for fire protection. The larger size pipes are financed through the water system as a whole and are not charged to independent users. The charge to independent users are for pipe sizes that are necessary to serve their particular development. Atkins/ Q: If the city's pumping of the silurian aquifer damages surrounding wells in the county, will the city compensate those damaged? If so, how? My understanding as a matter of law, the answer is yes, and if so it would be paid for by the cost of the project. Linda. Thank you. Okay. Q: After spending $50 million, will the water taste any better, look or smell different? Oh, please. That's what it says. Tell us, Ed. Moreno/ Yes. Yes. CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 95-47 SIDE 2 Arkins/ Q: What other EPA standards are coming close to being changed that might cause more cost? Either one of you. Moreno/ Do you want me to go first. In the water industry, there is some proposed standards that are being talked about. One is the enhanced surface water treatment rule. There is also some with respect to disinfection byproducts, and those are geared toward reducing some existing standards and creating some new ones with respect to disinfection by-products. I know that this is probably difficult to explain here. And with the enhanced surface water it is looking primarily at what is called the total organic carbon and the removal of that which again will assist in minimizing the production of disinfection by-products. In addition to that I think the EPA's focus is and will be here on the biological contaminants with the issue of Milwaukee and the cryptospuridium outbreak and bacterial contaminants. I think they will probably refocus on that. Atkins/ Okay. Dave Thisrepresents only oreasonably accurate transcription ofthelowa City council meeting of March 29, 1995. W$032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 26 Dave Elias/ And one other whole new area that the city may have to eventually address depending on how regulations continue to come up will be the area of storm water treatment, which is a completely distinct, separate system from sanitary sewage. Atkins/ Will you take a moment to describe storm water treatment, just real quickly so they understand that is different from what the two of you are responsible for. Elias/ Stormwater would be the water that runs off from off, off of streets, buildings, even off of the land and agricultural area included inside a city that come from rain or snow melt or something like that. That's a completely separate system. Moreno/ Can I add something, Steve. The water treatment plant design is being build or is being designed to address those standards. Arkins/ Okay. Q: Will the water produced in the new plant be soft? Moreno/ It will have a reduction in the hardness. In Iowa because of the geology of the limestone, water is hard. What we have experienced now are differences in hardness and I call hardness by calcium carbonate, ranging anywhere between well maybe 200 up to as high as 400 parts per million. What we ill experience in the new plant with the lime softening process is a consistent hardness of about 120 to 130 parts per million. So, it will not be soft. It will have a reduction in hardness though. Atkins/ This is probably for you, Ralph. Q: What regulations state wells must have a 1,000 foot radius around them? Russell/ There is not current regulation that requires. a legal control of lands 1,000 feet from a well. Current requirements, regulatory requirements, are less than that. They are 200 feet. The thing that we need to consider and have considered in siting wells is the much larger issue of water shed protection. It's quite obvious in any water source it is important to protect the water shed that provides water into that source. EPA has some draft regulations developed that are not requirements yet that state that the 200 foot limitation for legal control will be extended to something more than Thisrepresents only eraasonably accurate transcription ofthelowa City council meeting of March 29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 council Work Session page 27 that. At this point we don't know exactly what that number will be. It may be 500 feet. It may be 1,000 feet. It may be 1/4 mile or 1/2 mile. As you can imagine, the water source and the depth of the water underground will depend upon how subject that water source is to contamination. So there is no current regulation that says 1,000 feet. There have been some maps used in this project that show 500 foot radius circles and 1,000 foot radius circles around all of our water sources. Those are to call everyone's attention to the fact that we need to pay attention to what may be coming in terms of regulations. But most of all do what we have to do to protect that water source or that water shed area. Atkins/ Q: How much would it cost to test for the feasibility of ASR, aquifer storage recovery? It says to test for. Schmadeke/ The aquifer storage and recovery process, the feasibility process, is kind of like a three phase project. The first phase is to look at kind of the technical and legal and regulatory aspects in the geology of the area. Whether it is even possible. And the second phase then is usually to do a pilot test on perhaps a test well and then from there, depending on the results, to decide whether or not it can be expanded. The exact cost of all of that I am not exactly sure. Atkins/ That's okay. When you are not sure, you are not sure. A question I can visit with you later. Q: Didn't we just build a wastewater plant a couple of years back? Are we going to have to jump and spend $10-20-30 million every ten years to improve our wastewater plant? Does it ever end? Yes, we did build a wastewater plant. We began construction in 1988, completed in 1990 and at the time complied with the regulations that were in existence. At that time we felt that we had an agreement with the federal government. That is there was a moratorium on any other capital improvements until the year 2000. If you will recall, during my comments, we were informed that those rules and regulations were changed and thereby we had to meet the ammonia standards sooner than later. Does it ever end? I wish I knew. I don't mean that to be flippant but I wish I knew. Q: Will the Elks Golf Course be compensated for the loss of land? If so, at what costs? Thisrepresents only erensonably sccuratetrensc~ptlon of ~elowa City counal meeting of March 29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 28 At this point we have no inclination to buy land from the Elks Gold Course. So, at no cost. Q: What percentage of the contaminants in the Iowa River are a result of agriculture? Schmadeke/ I don't know the percentage. But, you know, as we all know- Arkins/ Can I comment on that? I think folks have some idea. The listener obviously is aware of that the issue is. Or the caller- Moreno/ I guess it seems clear that the water shed that extends all the way up to north central Iowa is going through our primary industry which is agriculture and so it is inevitable that there would be some run off from that activity into the river, as non-point run off. Some of the issues that we are concerned about, nitrates, herbicides, pesticides, organics. I don't know the exact percentage that would be related to them. I mean it could be other man made contaminants that flow in also. But I think it is clear that the water shed is, you know, is subject to non-point sources from that industry. Atkins/ Q: Did the value engineering study evaluate the possibility of obtaining all of the water from alluvial sources such as infiltration galleries, thus reducing dramatically the treatment cost and capital outlay? Chuck- Schmadeke/ We have searched of about four years now for ground water sources. We feel that we have, I think, established the amount of alluvial water that we can utilize effectively with our new system. The value engineers did not look at utilizing all alluvial water. They did look at eliminating alluvial water entirely because there are still a lot of costs associated with the treatment of alluvial waters and what they looked at is using more Silurian water and less alluvial water because the Silurian water requires very little treatment. They also discounted that because of the probability of affecting wells in the county. They did look at water sources as part of the value engineering study. Arkins/ Ed, I have a series of questions. Let me step through these. Thisrepresents only areasonably accuratetranscription ofthelowe City councllmeetlngof March29,1995. W$032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 29 Q: What are the costs of the blending process? Q: What percentage od the total cost does this represent the water project, according to the writer? Q: Is this cost worth the dilution factor? And then an opinion. Q: Wouldn't it be better to notify the public once or twice per spring about nitrates versus spending all of this money? Want to try that one? Moreno/ I am unclear about the blending process. Atkins/ I am assuming the reference is well water (can't hear). That is what I am assuming it is. Moreno/ With-I want to address this a little differently. With the new sources that we are looking at, the alluvial water in particular. What we see on the Iowa River, peaks and valleys of different contaminants coming down. One of them being nitrates. What our tact has been at the existing facility is to dilute that down with water that has got virtually zero nitrates which is coming from the Jordan Aquifer. With the new process and the new source, we expect to see our reduced levels of nitrates year around and any peaks that might come down will be-the peak will be shaved off through this alluvial sands. The utilization of the silurian and Jordan can assist us with that and I guess we will continue to look that to assist us should an extended period of contaminant even raise the nitrate levels in the alluvial. I hope that is clear. As far as the notifications, I guess with the nitrate contaminant, if it is an acute contaminant and again it is impacting on a risk group that is infant, six months of age and less, and as you could see from the earlier presentation, notifying everybody about this can be difficult and upsetting and emotional. Whether we want to do that I don't believe that that is what Iowa City wants to do. I don't believe that continually notifying people that the water is unsafe and then it is safe then unsafe is a wise way to go. Atkins/ Got your opinion in, too, didn't you? A follow up in the back for wastewater. David- Q: Could you outline the cost differences for sewer plant Thisrepresents only areasonably accuratetranscription ofthalowa City council mes~ng of March 29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 30 options and the writer has break point chlorination, wetlands, tree farming and biological? Do you want to doodle and then come back to you? Elias/ Yeah. Atkins/ Okay, we will come back to that one. Q: can the billing be reduced in increments of 50 cubic feet instead of the current 1007 To the best of my knowledge it can but it would be a significant cost because of the meter change over. If the caller, again, would call back and leave your name and number, someone from our Finance Department can explain it better to you than I. But I do understand that the change over in the meter, it is simply not that finally detailed whereby we could measure it in increments of 50 as opposed to 100 cubic feet. Call us back and we can have someone get back with you. Q: Why is it proposed we process the University of Iowa sludge? I think they mean the water sludge° Doesn't it add more expense to the already expensive project? Chuck- Schmadeke/ The University of Iowa sludges are a small component of the total sludges that we will be producing. So it will not change our operation significantly to add their sludges to our process. We are not going to do it for nothing, however. We will negotiate a contract with them. They will pay the costs associated with the processing of their sludges. Atkins/ Q: Is the city going to adopt a well head protection ordinance? If so, when? If yes, will it exceed current IDNR requirements? Will existing wells who do not meet these requirements have to be abandon? I think that a well head protection issue is more pertinent to the county. I do recall, in fact, Chuck, you and I sent a proposed well head protection ordinance to the county many years ago and at that time there was-there did not appear to be an interest in it. Exceeding the IDNR requirements, I assuming that if you had a well head protection that is the area around the well, you can exceed but not do less than whatever the requirements are. But the city doesn't have anything pending now with respect to well head protection. Thisrepresents only ere~onably accuratetranscription ofthelowa City counctl meeting of March 29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 31 Q: When are you going to build the plant? Let me just i g ve y~u sort of a moments worth of what I understand to be the issues as they relate to scheduling. When the EPA removed our ability on the wastewater plant to build in the year 2000, they instructed us that we had to build wastewater improvements sooner. It is the intent to build the wastewater plant, that is begin the construction, as early as this fall. We have approximately a two year time table. As I indicated in my earlier comments on the water project, there is some atltude and that we are not now under orders with 1 ' respect to construction. We will be required, however, to meet the new regulations. Whether we meet them at the old plant or we meet them at a new plant is really of no consequence to the EPA. So that time frame and the financing associated with it is yet to be decided. Q: Will Coralville resident be served by the Iowa City Treatment Plant now or in the future? Schmadeke/ We have been in contact with the City of Coralville our water treatment facility ~h~u ~ ..... on . , . ~. __v~ .~nuose aE this time, of course, t~ ~alnt~ln their own facility and we w~,,1 , the capability with our design to s~L - ~ ---~dn t have . , u ~¥~ ~nem anvwa . OF t some ~o~nt in tlme it becomes advantageous ~ Y a communities to work ~-~ ..... - for the two .... . ~=t~r.ror a unified water treatment facility I think at that time ~t would be appropriate to begin negotiations. Atkins/ Q: Now that we know that trails are going to be built on the proposed plant, is not the tax payer paying for these trails one way of the other. Who pays for the maintenance of the trails? Now how does the park come into play? The project site plan has a proposed trail along the river. It will be up to the city council and ultimately- I lost my train o~.thought. A~i right.. The trail system the s' , all of those ~ssues _ ,. ~te plan. and co ' w~l~ be th~ respons~D~lit . __~nc~l. when .they ultimately decide o~ ~h~ %~e c~y a ....~ ~= ~¥er is to be financed by other than water revenues. Who pays for those? Citizens of this community and I am assuming they will pay for those through their taxes. Who will maintain the trails? Again, f am making the assumption that given the trail ideas that are being put forth, maintenance of those trails Will be the responsibility of the Depart of Parks and Recreation. How does the park come into play? It is not relevant at this point in time. David, Thisrepresents only areasonably accuratetranscrlption ofthelowa Citycouncil meeting of March 29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 32 how are you doing on your numbers. Take a run at it? Want the question again? Elias/ Well, let's give it a try here. Atkins/ Q: Please outline the cost differences for sewer plant options? Elias/ Okay, first of all we did never really cost out the alternative with tree farming because we found that it was not suitable on that site. And then in order to try to compare the various costs for different processes, if we can, we would just like to look at ammonia removal costs and for wetlands we found that cost to construct for ammonia removal would be about $25 million. To do the break point chlorination as outlined earlier, that would be approximately $2 million and then strictly to do ammonia removal by biological means at the south plant would be $2.5 million. But there are many other factors that come into play there. There are the need for additional sewer pipes that may or may not be needed in any of these options that kind of come and go depending on the time frame you are in, how much you will need to move away from the north plant and also we still have to consider the need for just basic secondary treatment or BOD removal which is also limited capacity at the north plant and actually there is no growth potential at the north plant. There is some at the south plant but it is not accessible to some of the parts of the city. So, actually the sewer pipe issue also comes into play there and changes the numbers as the projects are actually laid out. Arkins/ Can we say that we can't outline the cost differences easily? Elias/ Not easily. Arkins/ Why don't we-we have that question and if the person either called it in or is in the audience can stop by and visit with us a little bit more about it., I think you could go forever. We could probably come up with the cost components but we just haven't calculated it. Q: Why can't the sludge be removed on a more timely basis than once or twice a year? This is water. It would take some amount of trucking and we could save a substantial sum of the up front costs. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of March 29, 1995, WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 33 Moreno/ Let me comment about sludge first. One thing that I want to point out is at our current facility we also produce sludge. Sludge is that component of chemical and dirt that is in the water that we are treating. What we do at this time we discharge that , thousands and thousands of pounds of sludge, directly into the Iowa River. In the new facility we will not be allowed to do that and as far as sludge component it is fairly new to us. We have not been dealing with sludge in the past and the possibilities that you outline there are possible. I mean we could look at trucking more often than twice a year. So I guess we are still looking at it. Schmadeke/ It is very difficult to haul more than twice a year, however, because our proposal is to haul this out onto agricultural land. the only time we can haul on agricultural land under production and that is the land that we hope to haul to is in the spring and in the fall of the year. We have had experience with that at the wastewater plant because we also haul wastewater sludges to farm land and there are some years when because of the weather we can't get into the fields. It could either be dry when the farmer wants to get in there immediately in the spring as was the case last year and they don't want us in there or it could be a wet year when we can't get in. So we need the storage capacity to ride out those periods when we cannot get into the fields. Atkins/ This is probably a question for both Chuck Meyer and Ralph- Q: What are other communities doing who are in similar or the same situation? Are they building the same kind of treatment plants? You serve a number of communities. Either one of you are to begin. Russell/ There are a number of communities in Iowa. Well, in other states I am sure as well. But I am most familiar with Iowa. That are faced with the same situation we are faced with here in Iowa City and that is building water and wastewater facilities at the same time. There are a lot fewer facilities or fewer communities that have the water source like we have here. In other words, the surface water. It is very easy to compare Iowa City to Cedar Rapids, for example, of to another eastern Iowa community and t~e danger in doing that is that some communities may not be using surface water. Surface water treatmentplants are more expensive and you can see in this recommended solution to Iowa City's water problem we have used Thisrepresents only areesonably accurate transcription ofthelowe City council meeting of March29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 34 about four different water sources. The objective here is to use the best quality of water that is available to keep the treatment costs down. Just a couple bits of information regarding what are other communties paying. Communities in Iowa, Boone I think is a community of about 10,000 people maybe. They are probably going to be spending about $20 million on water and wastewater. Winterset has just recently completed a water and wastewater facilities. I think they spent about $10 million in a community of about 5,000 people. So, there is just a couple of examples that if you look at total expenditure for water and wastewater together, it is very similar to what we are seeing here in these two projects total. Its risky to compare that way because everybody has a different water to treat and everybody has different facilities from which to start when you are constructing. So, that just gives a little bit of information. Atkins/ Chuck, do you want to add to that. Meyer/ I just might make a remark or two. During ammonia removal and this certainly isn't something new. A number of communities in Iowa and as well as around the country have had to provide ammonia removal in years past already. A real visible example of probably many of you have noticed is the City of Newton wastewater plant is right adjacent to I~80 on the south side of the highway. And we designed that plant for them in the early '80s, built in the mid-80's. So that has been ten years ago and they were required to provide ammonia reduction at that time. The standards have gradually become more strict over the years and is being applied to a broader base of communities at the present time. But I would say probably Iowa City is towards the end of the scale rather than the beginning of the scale on communities that are being required to provide ammonia reduction. One other comment, let me throw in. Amm~onia reduction is different than the standard wastewater treatment requirements of past years. That is that we refer to BOD or organic removal and all communities were required to provide the same level of treatment whether they were large or small or whether they were on a very large river or a small river for those types of contaminants. However for ammonia, all communities aren't required to provide the same level of removal. It is a function of the size of the stream compared to the size of the discharge that is put into the stream. It is a stream standard. It isn't a universal across the board standard that all communities do the same thing and that there are a number of communities that do not provide ammonia reduction and never will have to because their Thisrepresents only areasonobly accurate transcription ofthelowa City council meeting of March 29,1995. W$032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 35 discharge is relatively small compared to the size of the stream that they discharge into. Atkins/ There is a follow up question. If you can't answer it, you can't answer it. Q: Do you have any idea how the coremunities that you mentioned are paying for their improvements? I assume their financing options. Russell/ Practically all of the ones I am aware of are revenue bonds paid by rates. And the variations to that I think, Steve, are many communities will sale GO Bonds to reduce the coverage as required and to get a little better rate on the bonds. But, in almost all cases that I am aware of, water rates pay for water improvement and sewer rates or sewer revenues pay for sewer improvements. Atkins/ A water question- Q: If the city moves ahead to build the water treatment plant soon, doesn't that preclude taking advantage of other options that have been put forth such as the ASR? Moreno/ No, I believe that they go hand and hand or could go hand and hand. I guess my feelings are that the issues in Iowa City are related to water quality and that has been the focus of our plan and our project and I think we need to address that. Following that there are other possibilities with ASR that I think we can explore. Arkins/ Q: can maintenance roads to the wells and along the mains double as trails? If I recall, I can answer part of that, I know that our-I think the Riverfront and Natural Areas Commission has discussed extensively the use of our sewer easements for the use of trails. I know those are specifically being considered. The maintenance roads. Okay. Here's a down to it question, David- Q: What was the odor coming from the south plant last week? Elias/ We were cleaning out one digester and taking our some winter storage materials. Atkins/ And that means it smelled. Thlsrepresoats only areesonebly accurate transcription ofthelowa City council meeting of March 29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 36 Elias/ It smelled. Arkins/ A: Has the City of Iowa City had to address the IDNR with any type of assurance that the improvements are financially responsible? The financial justification being the citizens projected 30% water rate increase for starters. The DNR requested this type of data from North Liberty. I am not sure how to answer that question. I can assure you that we present to the IDNR, Iowa Department of Natural Resources, when we go through the process of review of our projects. I do recall specifically about 2-3 years ago and I don't know if I incorporated it in the packet of information, that we asked the DNR for some sense of what financial issues were and how we may have to go about it. And quite frankly, the IDNR's position was that is our obligation, our responsibility. That they have another set of responsibilities. I think the bottom line is that, I don't want to be too harsh, but that financial obligation are ours to fulfill whatever the rules and regulations are at the time. As far as this request from North Liberty, I will certainly contact my colleague from North Liberty to find out exactly what that means. I don't really know any more than that. Q: How expert is the Howard R. Green in infiltration galleries technology? Russell/ I would say not very expert. We have done a little bit of study and data collection primarily utilizing not just our knowledge but also the knowledge of the American Water Works Association. Those of us working in the industry obviously subscribe to association technical journals and so forth and it is very easy in this computer age to do literature searches that give us in£ormation within the industry on a particular subject. We have Hol]e the literature search on infiltration galleries. We have looked at a preliminary matter regarding how an infiltration gallery may be applied to this site, the site of the proposed treatment plant. Atkins/ Do you want to describe quickly infiltration gallery. Russell/ An infiltratinn qallery is usually 20-25 feet below the surface. Usually nnt deeper than that. It is a trench that is dug where a p~-!'~ted pipe or some kind of conduit is installed in thn t~nnch and granular material packed around the pipe. And t~.% becomes the collector that is installed horizontally fai~]~· ~hallow in the area and discharges into a Thisrepresents only a reasonably a,',","',~t,mmcHption of the Iowa City council meeting of March 29,1995. WS032995 March 29, 1995 council Work Session page 37 concrete structure, a silo of some kind, that you build underground which becomes the reservoir from which you pump the water. out initial analysis of infiltration galleries, based on the information we have, indicates that the site conditions that we have and that is we have some fairly fine particle material near the surface and then we have sand beneath the surface. All of the sand that is there is a fairly fine nature. It is not very course. Infiltration galleries work much better when you have course material near the surface. We have done some preliminary cost estimates on what it might cost to construct infiltration galleries in order to collect as much water from the site as is available and the costs are really quite large because the area would have to be de-watered in order the construct the laterals. We would have tremendous de-watering costs including shoring and so fourth. So, we are not experts on infiltration galleries. We have been able to collect some information on them and the preliminary analysis that we have done indicates that what we have proposed, in other words the horizontal collector wells, are going to do a better job of obtaining more water for the site at a lower cost than the infiltration galleries. Atkins/ Okay. A question specifically for you, Chuck. Who benefits? What kinds of people, industry, etc. from the specific wastewater improvements? Schmadeke/ Is the question- Atkins/ Ammonia removal is the issue. Meyer/ Ammonia removal is required because ammonia in the river is toxic to certain aquatic organisms or even fish at certain levels. So, the primary motivating factor behind removal of a]mmonia is to protect the aquatic ecosystem in the Iowa River. Ammonia also utilizes the oxygen out of the river in the natural decomposition process once it is discharged. So it not only serves as a toxic material. It also depletes all the oxygen that can affect aquatic organisms. So, it doesn't benefit any class or group of people or industries. It's protection of the stream. Atkins/ Q: Why is it that the financing of a water and wastewater plant bond issue is not subject to public approval? In Iowa, the law has very specifically identified what they call essential and non-essential purposes for bond issues. The city council has latitude with respect to their ability to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of March 29, 1995. WS03299§ March 29, 1995 Council Work Session page 38 authorize bond issues for certain specific purposes. Water and wastewater being one of those purposes. The other evening, for example, we did a refinancing of a parking bond. They have the authority to do that. We did a financing project on a number of street improvements. They have the authority to do that. Spelled out in the law, our requirements to do referendum on other issues. For example, if we were to build the new park and use any sort of general obligation debt beyond $700,000, it does require a referendum. Rather than get into the details of the law, I can provide the writer with that. If they can call back or see me afterwards. Ladies and gentlemen, we are down to about the last minute. Is there anything anybody on the panel would like to add. I think needless to say, we seem to have a pretty successful evening. One final comment. I didn't comment on the question about the North Liberty discharge. Just a couple of words on that. The North Liberty discharge into the Iowa River upstream from the intake point at the new plant site. The question I think was are the engineers concerned about that. At the level I think at which the writer of the question described, I would have more concern than at the discharge limits that are required by their permit. The final comment I think that is important is that the plant that is proposed will provide adequate treatment for that water with that discharge in the stream. I think that is the important point here. No site is perfect. That is one of the small drawbacks of this site. It is not a deal breaker so to speak. Atkins/ Ladies and gentlemen, listening audience, thank you very very much for the time and effort you have obviously put forth. The calls did come in and we really appreciate that. On behalf of the city staff I want to thank you and members of the audience know there is a number of city council. I think I can speak for them and say thank you and good evening. Thisrepresents only aroa$onahly accuratetranscription ofthelowa City council meeting of March 29, 1995. WS032995