Update May 6, 2008

The City has entered into an agreement with Municipal Design and Environment Services to complete the plan for water and wastewater extensions along Route 2 North.  When the plan is complete and we have cost estimates, the City will investigate State of Illinois help for the financing. 

The annual lift station inspection has found a defective motor starter and pump at the high school and also a vibration in a pump on 10th Street.  Mississippi Valley Pump has informed us that a pump at the 10th Street Lift Station requires as $1700 rebuild and a motor from the Jefferson Street Lift Station requires a $600 rebuild.   The units have been removed and are being repaired.

The City Water Department has been busy installing new water meters and they have made considerable progress.  The City is going to buy a new water meter for the high school, which is not working properly and is probably 50 years old.   The city needs to assume responsibility for these commercial water meters after the initial installation by the builder, so the water department has access to make sure they are functioning properly.   

EMC is completing the comprehensive application for the EPA and our land applied sludge permit

With the warm weather Tuesday March 26th, John Warthenbe used the opportunity to repair the floor of our sludge storage stall.  They hauled three truckloads of broken concrete and poured a new four-inch thick floor on Wednesday.  This is a continued effort to maintain our aged wastewater plant and John and EMC saved the City a considerable sum by doing the work in house. 

We will be fabricating and installing an on – off valve for drinking water at Iron Mike and the overflow should keep the horse and dog bowls full.  We will try things until we find something that works.  It must be remembered that Iron Mike was using 80,000 gallons of water a month.

We found a broken four-inch water main at the Carnation fire site.  A seal had been blown out in the line in a manhole probably due to water pressure variations.  This was draining into our sanitary sewer and is estimated to be in the millions of gallons.  The high un-metered water loss on last months report from EMC indicates the wasted water. 

The City of Oregon received information that the Water & Sewer Department will be receiving $50,000 from The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity and this is though the efforts of Jerry Mitchell our State Representative.  This grant will be used for the Cities obligation to the Settlers Ridge Subdivision utilities connections.   Charlene and I are completing the application forms.

April 24th EMC had sludge hauled and land applied from our digester only. Because of the wet weather and need for farmers to get into their fields, again we are confronted with sludge problems.  This could be a repeat of five years ago that indicated the need to address sludge problems and has led to the wastewater plant upgrade