Meeting Minutes 10-5-2015
MINUTES OF SPECIAL MEETING
OF BOARD OF TRUSTEES
HOLIDAY SHORES SANITARY DISTRICT
IN CONJUNCTION WITH BOARD OF DIRECTORS
HOLISHOR ASSOCIATON
Monday, October 5, 2015
The Board of Trustees of the Holiday Shores Sanitary District met on the above date in special session pursuant to laws and rules of said Board of Trustees and in accordance with the terms of the notice of special meeting. The meeting was held at the Holiday Shores Club House at #1 Holiday Point Parkway, at 7:00 PM.
Rich Hayes, President called the meeting to order. Trustee also present was Jeff Sedlacek. Trustee, Denny Van Sandt was unable to attend, and two Trustees make a quorum for a meeting. Also present were Carla Lankster, District Clerk, Joseph Urban, Water Plant Operator and Ken Dulle from Du-Con, operations.
The meeting was in conjunction with the Holishor Association Board of Directors. The members of the board present were Bob Lowrance, Board President, Roger Rawson, Rich Hertel, Dave Decker and Jim Perotti. Glenn Dalton, Holishor Association Manager was also present. One resident, Brian Schiranko of 356 Wanda was present.
PURPOSE OF THE SPECIAL MEETING
The meeting was held due to concerns of the Holiday Shores Sanitary District of the impact of lowering the lake on the raw water pumping rates and the operation of the Water Plant.
Mr. Bob Lowrance opened the meeting for Holishor Association stating that Holiday Shores Sanitary District sent a letter requesting that the lake lowering be held at three feet and to not be lowered to Four feet three inches. Mr. Lowrance turned the meeting over to Mr. Rich Hayes who began for Holiday Shores Sanitary District. Mr. Hayes thanked the Holishor Board for allowing us to meet with the Holishor Board, to discuss lake which is the greatest asset of community. Many years ago there were a lot of lake front lots that did not have seawalls. That is no longer the case, and most lake front lots currently have seawalls. Mr. Hayes stated that he spoke with a contractor that said they would charge the same price to install a seawall, whether the lake is lowered or not. When the lake is lowered, Mr. Hayes said that we flush perfectly good water down the drain. HSSD does have a backup plan if the lake lowering causes a problem with the water plant, however it would be very costly, and the District tries to keep costs down for the residents. If Holishor stops the lowering at the current level of 3 feet, the water plant will make it through, but if it is lowered the full amount and there is a drought, we could really have a problem.
Mr. Roger Rawson responded by saying that there are at least 6 property owners who need the water lowered before they can repair the seawalls and one that has a lot of money invested in equipment that cannot work until the water is down. There could be legal action if the lake is not lowered and HSSD would be involved in it, because the Sanitary District has the issue with the lowering. Mr. Ken Dulle responded that if there are extenuating circumstances, you can get out of it. Mr. Rawson said, “This is not an emergency situation.” Mr. Dulle responded, “No, but when it is an emergency, it’s too late.”
Mr. Dulle had charts showing the two pumps by the water, that pump out of wells that will only fill up to the level of the lake. Another chart shows the water plant and the filtration system. There is a buffer tank that gets filled up based on the water coming into the plant from the pumps by the lake. The filtration units run 400 gallons a minute, but they are based on the level of the buffer tank and if they do not have enough water, they go into “stand-by” mode. When the level goes back up they kick back on. The last Lake Draw Down was in 2010 and the new water plant went on line in 2011, so this is the first time we have seen this flow slow down. This shut down mode is happening almost every half hour, and it really causes a problem with our chemical feed. This is happening at 3 feet down, and Mr. Dulle doesn’t know what is going to happen at 4’3” down. A possible solution would be for one of the filtration pumps to be shut down, but then the other pump would be running 24 hours a day to keep up with water usage. This could be an option in the winter when there is less water being used, but if we get into spring and the lake is still not at full pool, we run into a drought and evaporation, we could have a serious issue of supplying enough water out here. He said, “I’m just presenting what we see right now.”
Mr. Dulle explained that the Sanitary District has looked into solutions, including a floating pump being set up out it the lake to fill up the wet wells by the lake to the normal level. However, that has to be done on a manual set-up, it’s not automatic, so we would have to have someone monitor it all the time to control the fill up and shut off of the pump. To rent a floating pump, it is an additional $5,000.00 per month, which would be over $60,000.00 if we would need it for 12 months. We feel the better solution would be to leave the lake level at 3 feet down, and we could handle this over a short period of time.
Brian Schiranko of 356 Wanda is having seawall work done that requires the lake to be down, and he asked Mr. Dulle what HSSD is going to do for the 2020 lake draw down to fix this situation. A new pump station could be placed out in the lake, but it would be at a very high cost of about $500,000.00. So the current way is much more efficient, but it doesn’t matter if the lines are cut and put further down in the water, because those wet wells will only fill up to the level of the lake. Then Roger Rawson asked if the wells need to be dug deeper. Ken Dulle said that is a possible solution, but there is still the cost of making the wells deeper and new, bigger pumps for the wells would cost $30,000.00 each. Making the wells deeper would be a major undertaking, if it would even be possible.
Mr. Lowrance asked if the engineers looked at this issue, knowing that Holiday Shores lowers the lake every five years. Mr. Dulle said it was not considered an issue, because we never had an issue with it before.
Ken Dulle mentioned that the IEPA is very interested in this. Some water could be provided by Fosterburg Water, but that would be at additional costs to re-treat the water with chlorine. We can use the additional pump, but that would require approval by the EPA. Glenn Dalton would be involved in that too, if we cannot provide enough water to the residents.
The Holishor board members said that they were not formally informed of any problem with lowering the lake until recently. Rich Hertel had a question regarding the HSSD meeting minutes from August 10, 2015. He read the portion regarding preliminary tests that were done on the raw water pumps. The tests were done at full pool and down to 6 feet below full pool. The test results showed that the pumps would probably work as long as the water did not go below 6 feet below full pool. However, if we would have another drought situation, the District could have to ration water. Mr. Hertel asked, “Do you think the lake could go down that far?” Ken explained that we did that just to show the worst case situation in a simulated draw down. We saw what we are seeing happening, but differently than what we see in reality. Maybe what we are seeing will level out, and we are at the worst case right now.
Mr. Lowrance stated that he spoke with the Holishor attorney and the board has to stand by what the By-laws say. Ken said that if it is an emergency situation, it is too late. The solutions would take time to put into place. Jeff Sedlacek said “We will just have to work to change the By-law, and we’ll have to do that before 5 years from now.”
Since the board cannot stop the draw down, Ken Dulle asked that they stop the draw down every 6 inches, for a day, so more testing can be done before proceeding. Glenn Dalton replied that it can be done, and “the new projected draw down date to 4’3” is the 12th of October.” “I have to be down, the week of the 19th was my goal for replacing the gate, and I want to be at that level by that week.” The work on the Morning Glory is going to be that week. Bob Lowrance stated that yes, they can stop every 6 inches to test and Ken should not hesitate to contact them if it does become an emergency situation.
Mr. Rawson said, “I just hope you guys have your stand-by plan activated so that it’s not going to take a month, if we get to that.” Ken responded “I can’t go buy all of this stuff just on a ‘maybe we’ll use it’.” If we are put into a chlorine situation it would be $25,000 or $30,000 alone. The pumps are available, but it would take usually a month to get one after it is ordered. Also, our computer people would have to be contacted to see how it would tie in.
Rich Hertel asked, “What will it take to fix the problem, so we won’t have this issue again, other than stop draw down?” Ken Dulle said that the best solution would be to run the line out into the deeper part of the lake, so that the water would be sucked directly out of the lake instead of being stored in a well. But it would have to be an enclosed structure, because you wouldn’t want anybody to swim there, getting sucked up to it. It would be a coffer dam in the middle of the lake. All of this would cost about $500,000.00. Then Rich Hertel and Dave Decker questioned whether the engineers who designed the water plant could be responsible for paying for at least part of the cost. But Ken responded that the engineers would not have known about that lake draw down situation, unless we informed them.
Bob Lowrance thanked the Sanitary District for its contribution to the cost of the Morning Glory. Then Rich Hayes thanked the Holishor Board for taking the time to meet with HSSD tonight. Rich Hertel said he keeps getting questions as to why the lake lowering has stopped, and after this meeting, we can all give the same message that we have something worked out and going in the right direction.
Bob Lowrance closed the meeting by stating that since their hands are tied by the By-Laws, there will be no need for a vote.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr. Hayes made a motion to adjourn the meeting. Mr. Sedlacek seconded the motion and all the Trustees voted “Aye”.
Respectfully submitted, Carla Lankster, District Clerk