Commissioners OK new wastewater treatment plant equipment

Oct 06, 2023

The Richland County commissioners have approved several equipment purchases that will help keep county wastewater treatment operations running during emergencies. The board voted at its meeting Thursday to approve a $25,885 contract with Spring Electric of Mansfield to purchase and install an automatic power transfer switch at the main treatment plant and to spend $47,335 to buy a portable pump from Gorman-Rupp Pumps of Mansfield to use when problems occur at system lift stations.

Wastewater Treatment Director Amanda Miller told the board that the treatment plant is designed so that when the power goes out the transfer switch automatically connects to the emergency generator which runs everything at the plant. She said there have been some issues with the transfer switch doing what it needed to do during storms over the past several months.

"Unfortunately, the time before, earlier in April, the transfer switch completely stopped working. We had to actually manually transfer power," Miller explained. "They’re saying it would be better to replace it rather than to piece and part and figure out what's exactly wrong with it."

Miller said the cost includes nearly $17,000 for the switch itself as well as labor for installation including temporary wiring as a "work around" during the installation. She said not having the automatic switch leaves the plant open for potential permit, health code and environmental issues.

"If we have to have somebody on site, the turnaround time for somebody after hours is about 30 to 45 minutes and a lot can happen in that time frame," Miller said.

Miller said the purchase of a portable auto start pump is something that has been considered "for a while" to help the wastewater department in a number of ways. The main one is to substitute for the two generators that can be taken to "fixed locations" that do not have on-site generators that can be used during power outages.

"Unfortunately one of them broke down last year during what was our weather drama and we have been trying to find a replacement part to get that generator back," Miller said. "Unfortunately that generator was what I call a ‘Frankenstein’ generator that we pulled out of a junkyard, rehabbed and pieced together to make it work. One of the pieces that we need is something that was made in Germany forever ago and we cannot find it to make work again."

Miller said that while a new portable generator would be ideal, one the size that the department needs would cost in the "hundreds of thousands of dollars" range and would be a problem to obtain.

"We’re already dealing with a generator problem for (the lift station at) State Route 39 with a pushback originally of a 52 week wait and that got pushed back even longer," she said.

Miller told the board there have been a number of employee callouts with recent power outage issues that have caused the department to "man everything" in order to keep systems up and running. The problem is determining where the one generator is needed and how long employees can hold at a location before the generator needs to be moved.

Miller pointed out that the current pump on hand is a manual start that needs someone on site to stop and start it. The new one is self priming and will run based on the water level.

"It's a huge deal because you have to have someone stationed there and you can't have someone there 24/7, which is part of why we had issues where we were down at Bellville," she said. "We had power outages up here and at Bellville we had someone full time down there so it was how long can we wait before we have to take off here, put something else on line and then take it down there."

Miller told the board a portable device also can help temporarily if a pump has to be taken out of a facility for service. She said the cost of renting a pump for those circumstances is getting to be "astronomical" and that buying one for the department will be a better investment in the long run.

Commissioners also met in executive session for nearly two hours to interview two candidates for the position of director of the Youth and Family Council and then discuss those candidates. Afterward, they said they expect action to be taken at a later date.

The YFC position has been vacant since Teresa Alt and former Job and Family Services fiscal officer Carmen Torrence were terminated for cause November 15. Commissioners still have not commented on why Torrance and Alt were terminated.

In other business, commissioners:• Voted to advertise for bids to seal coat 31.587 miles of roads at 11 locations this summer. The County Engineer's cost estimate is $799,062.• Voted to advertise for bids for a bridge replacement on Cairns Road at an engineer's estimated cost of $1.98 million. The project is to be completed by July of 2024.• Approved a $25,300 contract with Yarman Construction of Fredericktown to make maintenance repairs at the county road department garage in Bellville.• Approved a new lease agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture for space at the Longview Building at a cost of $10.44 per square foot.