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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1980.05.20_OPWA MinutesThe Owasso Public Works Authority met in regular session on Tuesday, May 20, 1980, in Council Chambers at City Hall, per the Notice of Public Meeting and Agenda posted on City Hall bulletin board at 3:00 PM on May 16, 1980, and by reference made a part hereof. Present: Boyd Spencer, Chairman Robbie Fickle, Vice Chairman Al Lambert, Trustee Dennis Burke, Trustee Clyde Fry, Trustee © Kenneth Thompson, City Manager Harold Charney, City Attorney Merrilyn Merchant, Recording Secretary Absent: None The meeting was called to order at 8:00 PM, with Chairman Spencer presiding. ITEM 1 - APPROVE CONSENT AGENDA ITEMS Motion was made by Dennis Burke, seconded by Al Lambert, to approve Consent Agenda items, as follows, as published in the Owasso Reporter on May 15, 1980, and by reference made a part hereof: A. Approve Minutes of May 6, 1980 Meeting. B. Approve Warrants for Payment Ayes - Messrs Spencer, Lambert, Burke, Fry, Mrs. Fickle Nays - None Motion carried ITEM 2 - APPROVE ADDITIONAL WARRANTS FOR PAYMENT Motion was made by Boyd Spencer, seconded by Al Lambert, to approve additional warrants for payment. Ayes - Messrs Spencer, Lambert, Burke, Fry, Mrs. Fickle Nays - None Motion carried ITEM 3 - RECEIVE FOR FILE APRIL 1980 FINANCIAL STATEMENTS Mayor Spencer asked the City Treasurer, Ken Kite, to have the financial statements ready in time to be included in the packets in the future. Several of the Council members said they had not had time to look over the statements since they just got them. Mayor Spencer asked about the contingency fund for refuse. Ken Kite indicated there was $42,000 in this fund. Motion was made by Dennis Burke, seconded by Clyde Fry, to carry over the April 1980 Financial Statements to the next Council Meeting, to allow time to look them over. Ayes - Messrs Spencer, Lambert, Burke, Fry, Mrs. Fickle Nays - None Motion carried Owasso Public Works Authority May 20, 1980 Page Two ITEM 4 - ENGINEER REPORT ON STATUS OF PLANNING FOR UPGRADING SANITARY SEWER SYSTEM Mr. Cline Mansur, Mansur-Daubert-Williams Engineering Firm, told the Council he wanted to update the Council on the situation with the sewage treatment. "In 1972 the Federal Government and Congress passed public law number 92500, set up the Water Quality Act, EPA was established, and the responsibility for water pollu- tion and various agencies within the state were established. The Oklahoma State Department of Health is the one with which we have the greatest dealings. Within the last two months a delegation agreement was called. The State of Oklahoma has received, and taken over, the responsibilities of the EPA in the water quality program. It will be somewhere near a year, from beginning to end, for them to completely have the program. When problems come up in regard to water pollution, instead of going to the State Health Department for them to review and send down to Dallas, duties are supposed to be delegated so the State of Oklahoma can make the approvals and the part EPA will play will be that of auditing and final approval on certain features, and they will be continuing the duties of environmental assessments and environmental impact statements. We have told you from time to time about your lagoon system - about its capabili- ties, how it was acting and reacting. We went through a period of time back in 1975 in which you, as a part of the RMUA, received a report that was put out called the North Slope Study, in which certain recommendations were made, and upon approval of this report, were supposed to go into effect as the facility plan. Owasso was one of the cities involved. Part of this, our 1/4, was $1428.00. The Federal Government put up three times that amount, or $4200.00. What it means in that report is, it had been theoretically settled and there were certain things in the report Owasso was supposed to do. In a nutshell, it called for the City of Owasso to build a large pumping station and pump your sewage to the northside treatment plant at construction cost of $357,000, and an estimated annual operational cost of $37,000, to be paid to the City of Tulsa. We informed the Council, and advised that you do nothing. We felt you did not have to move at that time as regulations were being changed every month by EPA and we felt the requirements were too stringent, and that at the time the report was made up, the time involved and the study of Owasso's problems had not been complete enough. At that time, the lagoons were not an acceptable form of treatment by the EPA. Since that time they are an acceptable form of treatment and as late as today I received from the State Health Department a draft of their state project priority system, and as a part of this communication they give extensive briefs of the regulations that are involved, under which they are now working for EPA, and one of the things they touch on is the part INCOG plays in that they are the desig- nated waste water treatment planning agency. Once that is established, the State and EPA must follow their rules. Another thing mentioned in this report, they set up project type factors and define them. Category one is treatment facility necessary to discharge an affluent, mean- ing secondary, treatment definition. Under the north slope study, and even the later 208 study, if you go ahead with the way it is now, without some kind of protest, you must do advanced waste treatment. That is not secondary, it is tertiary. You must come up with a water quality which is 5-5-3 & 5 which means treated it has a maximum of five parts per million BOD, 5 parts per million total suspended solids, 3 parts per million ammonia nitrate, and must have a level of dissolved oxygen of 5 parts per million. Fish will live in one part per million, and an excellent water is two parts per million, but tertiary treatment requires 5 parts per million. Owasso Public Works Authority May 20, 1980 Page Three The Oklahoma State Department of Health defines secondary as a facility dis- charging into a perennial stream; shall be 30-30, 30 parts per million BOD maximum and 30 parts per million suspended solids. According to the 208 Study, we are not discharging into a perennial stream, we are discharging into a short length of creek, something less than 1/2 mile, which then goes into Bird Creek, and because the flow is less than 1 cu. ft. per second, or on the average 640,000 gallons per day, it is classed as an intermittent stream. The discharge requirements in there are 20-30, 20 BOD and 30 suspended solids. But, at the present time, if we can finally get it approved, secondary treatment for ponds shall apply to both perennial and intermittant streams, 30-90, 30 BOD and 90 suspended solids. Our lagoon has been operating excellently. It cannot meet the 30-30 year around, but it does part of the time. It can make the 30-90. When there is a time it exceeds this we can, with equipment added on, modify the lagoons and add on units at considerably less expense than you are being asked to put out for that pump station, and the price would probably be higher now. In all fairness to those who made the report in 1975, lagoons were not permitted then, but they are now. There was an uprising all over the United States because a lot of cities rushed to comply with the law and found themselves spending thousands of dollars putting in expensive plants which are difficult to operate and use large amounts of energy, causing themselves to have to raise their rates. The Congress has begun to do something about it. They have told EPA and they have started to loosen some of the standards. The 208 Update Report, 1979, of Incog, has not been approved, but I think INCOG is on our side. I am saying all of this is leading up to the recommendation we are going to have, relative to doing something here other than right now going into it and doing something on this plant. Until sufficient cause and effect data can be developed to justify advance waste treatment in each case, secondary treatment only should be required. Recommended intermittant stream standards presented in the initial 208 Plan should be adopted by the State, with provisions that all discharges into intermittant streams should be main- tained for secondary treatment only. Now, with that background, Tulsa at the present time is entering into a contract with a large engineering firm, to perform a facility plan for the northside treatment plant. They are entering into a contract with another firm for environ- mental impact plan. The plan is to start August of 1980 and finish March of 1982. What they find will have some important application here in Owasso. If they come up with something that could even make a recommendation toward reducing those standards in Tulsa from advance waste treatment to secondary, we certainly by that time would have it made. Whether they do it or not, before we cast off into something else, and you have us or someone else to go in here on a Step 1 Study, we ought to monitor what is going on and take advantage of that particulat infor- mation, from both of these reports. Now, last month on Thursday, April 24, I went to Oklahoma City to the office of Charles Hooten, who is the Chief of the Water Quality setup for the State of Oklahoma, and Mr. Paul Hodge who is his first assistant, and another individual in charge of the 208 Study for INCOG. I briefed them on Owasso, reminding them I had been in many times before. We both know how this thing is changing and Owasso is wondering if we are sitting around on our whatsis doing nothing and being left out for some kind of reason. Should we go ahead right now or not. What is our position right now. What should Owasso be doing right now, today. According to regulations, the State or anyone could come in and say I have to comply with regulations. Naturally, I say your position in Owasso is that the Owasso Public Works Authority May 20, 1980 Page Four standards under which your initial permit was made was 20-30, 20 BOD and 20 suspended solids. That permit expired July 1, 1979. We are now operating without a permit. Today, anyone who is obtaining a permit and who has reasons for obtaining a permit, is not given this permit on the basis of what you must do now, but it is a two - prong thing. The requirements in the permit are established but there are also certain dates that are mutually agreed upon which are put into the permit, by such time you must come into that. Tulsa's permit expired last July also, but they now have certain things under which they are operating, and it has come around to be a secondary one, and they are now adding on to their plant as a secondary. You do not have a permit, and are also operating in absence of a permit, so one of the things Mr. Hooten said was that they were not aware of any problems in Owasso, no one had been in to say anything.about Owasso dirtying up the environment and causing trouble. As a consequence, unless there is something of that sort, they are not taking the initiative and coming to you and saying you have to do something today simply because of a piece of paper given to you back in 1977, which has since expired. I went to Dallas the follow- ing day, the 25th of April, to talk to Mr. John Senaro, Project Engineer for EPA for this section of the State. I asked him the same questions and in effect received the same answers. They are not all sitting out there about to jump down your necks, because there is a technical violation in something you had before. Well, we are growing and putting on additional load. Are we going to find ourselves in a situation where we will have all of our construction stopped? I will tell you that no one has had construction stopped without warning. I can assure you now, and for a considerable period of time, we still have capacity in this lagoon to give an excellent quality of affluents. This may possibly bring up a question of what we should do now on the request by the people out in east Owasso who want to become a part of our treatment center. This is quite a serious problem and different from anything we have had up to the present time. If you went to EPA today, for anything, and told them you were a growing city but in addition to the 1,980 houses you have, you have 4,553 people who want to tie into Owasso's system by the end of this year, they would say alright but you don't get any money from us. And, you can't get money because of the requirements of EPA. First, they put their money into pollution abatement. In that area there is no pollution to abate. Lines would have to be built. EPA is not funding collector lines that will make for growth. It is legal but they don't have the money and they are putting what they have into pollution control. Next, when it comes to population in the State of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission has been selected as the agency to preduct population projections. We have had nothing but difficulties and argu- ments with their figures as they are never high enough. EPA has to come into it and you wind up with a compromise. There are two different reports that show for Owasso - 9,000 something is our projected 2000 population and another one is 12,000. I don't think that is so, I have figures from a water study that shows considerably more than that, but that still doesn't make any difference, you have to satisfy EPA and that becomes the determining factor relative to what you can do and how much money you can get from them. The people from east Owasso have submitted their planning which says by the year 2000 the population will be 21,000 for their area alone. The population is not going to be for Owasso 12,000 plus 21,000, because our estimated figures, as well as those from the Planning Commission, take in the whole area, regardless if it is in the City of Owasso, OPWA, or rural water district #3, or so far out. Your desire and willingness to Owasso Public Works Authority May 20, 1980 Page Five incorporate these people into your plan, and to be a part of your system, should not of my opinion have a part in the making of your decision to postpose this, as I am about to recommend. It could be taken into account at the appropriate time. Our feeling now is you can ultimately serve them under certain conditions. They can come to you and you can serve them on a contractual basis. They would themselves bring the sewage up to the City of Owasso, they would put up all the capital involved from whatever source they might obtain it, whether it is FHA or ® EPA or whatever source they might choose. It should not come into such a way that it would become a burden upon the City of Owasso. We now recommend an element to you at this time. Since the Oklahoma Water Resources Board is the board that establishes the water quality standards, not the Health Department, they are the ones that have been taken in by INCOG. They are the agency you would need to go to to fill out the recommendations that INCOG placed in here, relative to making a variance for the reasons they are stating here, to fit these conditions, in order that we would not go out and design a plant and cause Owasso to have to go to advanced waste treatment. If you go to advanced waste treatment now of 5-5-3, the Federal Government will not participate, because they don't think it is necessary. They think secondary is enough, and if you happen to be caught by a rule or regulation that demands more than that, you will just have to pay the bill. We are recommending that the City of Owasso, by a very careful and planned pro- gram, make a request for a variance from a 5-5-3 and 5 advance treatment, to a secondary 30-90. I am not encouraged that we will get better than a 30-30 or even a 20-30, but that is so much better than advanced waste treatment. Let me suggest that as we do this, we do it thru RMUA and INCOG, in enlisting the full support of INCOG and RMUA in obtaining this, their backing. We are in so deeply and inadvertently having some problems brought on because we are in with RMUA, I think it would be better to maintain their numbers if they will back us up and try for this variance. You are plowing new ground. There is nothing in the records that gives us a procedure for this and no variance has ever been requested before. But, we are not going to get one without trying for one. Let us spend our time in the next three or four months while the other studies are going on, and while they are changing somewhat, and try for this variance. I would suggest that if we do not proceed with this variance, we arrange to with- draw from RMUA. We go to EPA and say we have put up $1400 and something dollars and you have put up $4200. We have come to you in times in the past, and we think we need to do thus and so, -and they say we can't help you because we paid for this once. We paid-but'we didn't get anything. If we go back to them and return the $4200 the Federal Government has put out, then we do not have anything they have paid for, we can apply for a Step 1 application as if nothing had ever gone on and then we would be eligible for everything that the regulation would permit. I talked to EPA about that. It was something new and they wouldn't say no, but they wouldn't say yes. We are suggesting that the City of Owasso make request for variance from these conditions and maintain our present posture relative to not doing a Step 1 Report at the present time. The present proposal you have for a Step 1 Study does not speak to your problem and will not be approved but will have to be modified to a great extent. It has been taken more or less from the guidelines from EPA, but there are certain things you would have to pay for under the present circumstances." Owasso Public Works Authority May 20, 1980 Page Six There was some discussion on the present reports showing improvement in the sewer lagoon. Bill Williams indicated that improvements have brought the BOD and affluents down. Mayor Spencer questioned why the report had jumped up all of a sudden, when before we were barely meeting requirements to keep the Health Department from getting on us. Mr. Williams indicated we now have professionals doing the testing, which we did not have before; he also indicated that they were certified by the EPA. Also, that we had made improvements down there, added two aerators and were paying better attention to the lagoons. Mr. Mansur indicated that back in January the BOD was 4612, suspended solids 35; in February 212-9; March 23-9; April 17-2. That is an excellent report. Mr. Mansur indicated that he has a certain amount of bias on this because it is his design and there is no other like it in the world. Mr. Thompson asked if rainfall would have some affect on the system, to which Mr. Mansur replied yes and no, that temperature, wind, rainfall, humidity all have some affect on the readings. Mayor Spencer voiced his opinion that the Water Quality Board would not give the variance to us. Mr. Mansur said we know they won't if we don't try. Mayor Spencer said there would be no harm to send information to the Water Quality Board and State Health Department to let them know that we are trying to keep abreast with the situation and that we are going to do something. He would like for the letter to go strictly out of this office. The Council took no action on this matter at this time. They agreed to talk to INCOG and RMUA first. ITEM 5 - NEW BUSINESS None Being no further business before the Owasso Public Works Association, the meeting was adjourned at 8:50 PM. Chairman c Rec rding Sozretary