Public Property Update

May 15, 2007

The City replaced an obsolete hydrant at 4th and Jefferson Street.  We had been experiencing some leaking with this old hydrant and repair parts are no longer available.  We will also be replacing one of these old hydrants where IDOT is replacing the sidewalk in front of the Courthouse. The City replaces these hydrants whenever possible. 

The catch basin at 4th and Washington has been replaced and properly connected to the storm sewer main.  This is the last known City owned basin that was connected to our sanitary wastewater system.  A plan will be formulated this year to address privately owned storm water connections to our sanitary system and how it must be corrected. 

The City now has the new software installed for the auto-read water meters, and now City employees will be using the new system to calculate water bills.  We now have 65 of the new meters installed and we will continue to change over to the new system as finances permit. 

The City met twice with Smith Engineering Consultants and discussed the installation of a SCADA monitoring system for our water and wastewater plant.  This system can be coordinated with the wastewater plant upgrade and will be incorporated in the new building laboratory facilities.  This modern technology is being planned into our system and can be added as financing permits.  I may present a plan to enter into a contractual agreement with our integrator in the next few weeks.  The ultimate goal will be to have a SCADA system monitor all City water and wastewater components.

In discussion with CMT our engineers, the new wastewater upgrade will be adequate for the addition of 1000 homes in Oregon, and future modifications to the existing plant would provide for an additional 1000.  This would be adequate for a population of 6000, and added population beyond that would require additional wastewater plant construction that can be adapted to our planned upgraded system.  All planned construction is integrated with plans for future expansion. 

EMC and the City paid a visit to the Peru Indiana wastewater plant that is four years old and incorporates the Cannibal Process that we are installing in Oregon.  The system is performing as planned and they have all but eliminated sludge disposal.  Peru is a City of 13,000 and had a cost estimate of 60 million dollars to separate their storm and sanitary sewers.  They will treat all water, storm and sanitary with their new 21 million dollar facility.   They previously land applied 3 million gallons of sludge annually at a cost of $80,000.