- At the time is five o'clock. I'd like to call today, Monday, June 16th, 2025 utility service board meeting to order. First on our agenda is petition and communications. Are there any petitions and communications from the public?
- Hearing none, we'll move on to the approval of the minutes of the previous meetings. First, we have the June 2nd bid opening. Are there any questions or comments on the June 2nd bid opening? Hearing none, do we have a motion for approval? I move we approve the minutes of the June 2nd meeting. Bid opening. A bid opening, excuse me. Second.
- We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. The bid opening is approved and I would like to take a minute to take a step back and state that the city of Bloomington utilities mid mission is to enhance the quality of life in our community by providing safe, sustainable and high quality drinking water, wastewater and stormwater services in a cost effective manner, promoting public health,
- economic vitality, and environmental stewardship. And if any board member has any personal or financial conflict with any issues or individuals on the agenda, then please be sure to recuse yourself during those portions of the meeting. Thank you. Moving along to the June 2nd regular meeting minutes. Are there any questions or comments on the regular meeting minutes? I move we approve the minutes of our regular meeting on June 2nd.
- Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, say nay. Regular meeting minutes are approved. Next, we have approval of the claims. We have two standardized voices. The first is the revised for a total amount of $906,892.42. Are there any questions on the revised
- claims list. Yes. I realize there are different invoice numbers, but there's two credit memos for the exact same amount for the same item for the Amazon. Were there two things indeed returned? Thank you. Okay. Any other questions or comments on the revised claims?
- Hearing none, do we have a motion for approval? I move we approve the revised standard invoices. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, say nay. The revised claim list is approved. Next, we have the standard invoices for a total amount of $568,219.72.
- questions or comments on the standard invoices. Yes, I have two. One would be on page five, NUGENT, the fifth one, 1522021. It's for sewer pipe green, but it goes to water. Just wanted to make sure that that was correct.
- I have no problem approving the charge, but just want to make sure it goes to the right account. So when we buy things for our inventory, we always put it into water. And then at the end of the month, we do one journal entry to move it to stormwater into wastewater. Thank you. And then on page six, the First Republic Services for Trash Removal at Dillman
- Some of that goes to water, but maybe it just says at Dillman, some of the services were here at Service Center too, or something happened there. It says at Dillman, so I just wanted to make sure that $61.52 was correctly assigned, that's all.
- Thank you. I have no problem approving it. We just want to make sure that gets to the right place. That's all. Any other questions or comments on the standard invoices? I move we approve standard invoices for June, table June 20th. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Standard invoices are approved. Next we have utility bills.
- for a total amount of $235,449.10. Are there any questions or comments on the utility bills? Hearing none, do we have a motion for approval? I move we approve utility bills. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, say nay. Utility bills are approved.
- Moving along, we have wire transfers for a total amount of $621,774 and six cents. Are there any questions or comments on the wire transfers? So usually OK with Chase Bank, the processing fees usually would say credit card fees. So what's the difference? Getting charged by transactions from
- the bank that Tyler uses, which is our software. And so we're going back and we've been working with them to see if that was supposed to be covered in the updated contract when we started to pass the credit card fees on to the customer. So we're verifying that we're actually supposed to be getting charged those. We haven't come to an agreement yet. And since we're still working on the agreement, just so I'm clear, so this is
- only customers who pay via credit card that's a Chase credit card or is this all credit card? This is fees that the bank that Tyler uses is charging us to monitor the credit card transactions. So Tyler uses the Chase bank. Yes. And we're looking in to see if that was supposed to be part of the cheese. Those are supposed to be passed on the customer as well for the contract and we haven't bottomed that out yet.
- And maybe I just missed it, but has this been on there since like January or is this a new line? We've been covering all those in the past. Maybe we've had other credit card line items and therefore I just considered it. When we moved all the other fees to the customer, we're trying to get
- but the contract CD should have been moved as well. Right. Or if Tyler is supposed to be covering these. Okay. And they've been on there since probably the whole year. Okay. So every month it's $1,900. Thank you. Good question. Any other questions on the wire transfers? Hearing none, do we have a motion for approval? We approve wire transfers for June. Second. Motion in the second. All in favor, please say aye.
- All opposed say nay. Wire transfers are approved. Lastly, we have customer refunds for a total amount of $6,631.23. Are there any questions or comments on the customer refunds? Hearing none, do we have a motion for approval? We approve customer refunds for June 20th. Second. Motion is second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay.
- Customer refunds are approved. Thank you all. Item number five on our agenda is approval of consent agenda. Catherine Zager. Good evening. I'm Catherine Zager, utilities director. I'm presenting tonight's consent agenda pending controller approval totaling $50,129.30. The first contract is with Wheeler Coaching Systems LLC for $19,850.
- for operations communications training. Next is with vet environmental engineering LLC for $10,319 and 30 cents for the review and update the report for Lincoln and third project, including a narrative exhibit, analytical data, documents, exhibits, and table updates. Next is with Esmil Corp for $0 and 0 cents
- for a pilot project for screw press at Blucher Pool Wastewater Treatment Plant. Next is with Title Plus for $1,170 for title work related to easement updates required for the cattle and sewer relocation. Next is with Course in Fire and Security for $5,540 for fire extinguisher inspections at all CBU locations.
- The last is with Herald Fish Inc. for $13,250 for many split units in the lab area at Dilman Plant. Is there any member who wishes to consider one or more of these items individually? Yes. I just would like to get more information on those coaching systems, what that's about. So if we have to pull that for discussion. OK. Do we discuss that now or later? I think it's a bit on the agenda.
- We'll put it on the agenda. All right. Is there any member who wishes to consider any of the other items individually? Yeah, let's take a separate look at the VET environmental engineering. So let's see.
- Is there any member who wishes to consider anything else individually? Okay. Hearing none, if there's no opposition, items C, D, E, and F will be approved as recommended by staff. N, G, C, D, E, F. There's no G. No G, sorry. C, D, E, and F. C, D, E, and F will be approved as recommended by staff.
- Hearing no opposition, the welding. Hearing no opposition, items C, D, E, and F on the consent agenda are approved.
- Thank you. Let's start with A and then we'll go to B. What is this coaching? Who's getting the benefit of this and what is this program? Absolutely. So the Wheeler Coaching Systems is essentially a leadership workshop that we've done in the past.
- We did it two years ago as the leadership team. It was the assistant directors and the director at the time. I feel like we got a lot from it. It really helped build the bonds of teamwork that you need on that leadership level. And so we'd like to do the same thing with our operations leadership. So that will include all of our superintendents and our assistant superintendents.
- because they're at different plants and so they don't often get the opportunity to create those leadership skills together and build themselves as a team. Is this the same group that the board also met with or is this a different? This is different. This is different? Yes. Great.
- I just wanted a little bit more information than what was on the memo. Okay, I move approval of the contract with Wheeler Coaching Systems. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, say nay. Item A on the consent agenda is approved. Item B, please. Yes.
- So the VET environmental engineering, this is associated with the contaminated soils that were discovered during our hidden river project. And so we are moving forward with some legal litigation type things. And VET is continuing to support us in that to produce exhibits, and this is
- the right direction, we had to spend a lot of money to remove the contaminated soil. And I just wanted to know about our progress of getting reimbursed for that by previous owners or previous insurance during the time that the contamination occurred. So I know that Chris Wheeler would be able to speak
- about this probably more eloquently with better legalese. But essentially, there were back and forths between parties, and now we are pushing forward with litigation. Are we dealing with insurance companies? I don't know if we're dealing with insurance companies or just the insurance company was the owner of the potential contaminated site.
- Previous owners or current owners? Previous. Okay. Thanks. This is my question. I hope we approve the environmental engineering contract with VET environmental. Second. Motion and second. All in favor please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Item number B, item letter B of the consent agenda
- is approved. Thank you. Moving on to number six on our agenda, request approval of resolution 2025-09 for bid acceptance and contract award. Phil Peden. Good evening, Phil Peden, engineering department. This is for the Catalan Sewer Project. I think the information is pretty straightforward in the resolution.
- resolution award after we open bids at the last board meeting and You'll see on this one. We do have to disqualify PAF construction because they didn't complete all the proper components to the bid package We are requesting that the base bid and alternate bid presented by Crider and Crider be Approved and awarded as the lowest responsive and responsible bidder It is one
- $1,416,923.50. Thank you, Phil. Are there any questions or comments for Phil? Hearing none, do we have a motion for approval? I move we approve the resolution
- 2025-09. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Approved. Thank you. Next, we have request approval of resolution 2025-10 to recommend proposed ordinance 2025-23 for amendments to Title 10, Stephen Stanford. Good evening. I'm Steve Stanford. I am your pre-treatment coordinator.
- Every five years, our NEPDES permits renew for the two wastewater plants, Dillman and Blucher. Each time these renew, we are required under federal law and the language of the permits to do a technical reevaluation of our local limit standards. We went through this process internally, submitted this to the EPA. We found that it's,
- we need to reduce our local limits for cadmium, mercury, selenium, and silver by certain amounts that are set in the documents before you. The EPA reviewed our work and tentatively approved it pending adoption by the Common Council in ordinance, in which case they will officially approve the change to the local limits. So that's the first part. Does anybody have questions about the local limits part?
- Okay. Thank you for this information. What does this do to the taste of the water? Nothing. This is strictly sewage. Oh, well, I'm sorry I wasn't doing a very good job listening. It would taste terrible. Don't drink it.
- The second item that we're recommending change to Title X is a small adjustment to our lower level pH limit. I've seen, looking at the sewage collection system and the wastewater plants, evidence of corrosion due to acidic wastewater at Blucher, Dillman, and in the sewers that I've observed. We can help protect our assets if we are,
- willing to make this small change and have our industrial dischargers be sure to send us water that's not too far on the asset side. So we're recommending that it be reduced from five or increased from five to six. It'll really help us out in those regards. Any questions there? How does industrial customers
- to achieve that? Most of them don't need to do anything. We have one industrial customer who does pH adjustment and it would be like a modest increase in the amount of caustic soda they use to adjust the pH upward. We had one customer that we actually went and visited and just politely asked them if they could reset their pH set point for us because it would help us out
- pointed out that it would help them out because they have their own private lift station, which is gonna benefit just as much as we are downstream. And so they did so. And this is just an opportunity for us, I think, to codify what's already been done. The next item is a couple of updates to the fats, oil, and grease ordinance here. In this instance, we're doing a little cleanup on Title 10.
- There was at least one grammatical error in one section that we're correcting. We're adding a definition that is already contemplated in the rules and regs for devices that are in use. This is a definition for the hydromechanical grease trap. And we've also recommended a minor change to the design standards for the food service establishments that would allow them to plumb
- the dishwasher through a grease interceptor. Uh, it'll give additional flexibility and I think it will help reduce the amount of fat, soil and grease we take on in the sewer system. So I think it's a, it's a win-win for everybody. It's more flexibility going forward. I just have a comment on that. I think that's fantastic that you're going to, that you've found some additional, um, products that are,
- acceptable to us in terms of all of the customers with protecting, or I should say not protecting, but pulling out the fats and greases and solids. And it's also very nice to see that you're doing something for the restaurant owners, the business owners, because that's fantastic for them to have an additional one that's at a lower cost and so something that's more expensive. So fantastic. Thank you very much.
- Thank you. Yes. Are they a new technology or they improved? Is that why we're now adding them? We initially began approving their use in 2019. We just never added it to the to the definition just wasn't in title 10 in title. So this is sort of cleanup on title 10. So and regarding the pH if
- If we're codifying practices that are already taking place that these industrial users, that they don't seem to be the major contributor to the degradation of our system in terms of corrosion, then it would be more the broader waste stream that is at a lower pH that's causing these problems? There's other factors. Certain reaches of the collection system that move slowly and sit for a time turn septic.
- which causes the pH to go to the lower side. We're doing what we can here with the controlled discharges, which is the permitted industrial users and the industrial customers. We can't really place limitations on the residential customers in this regard. It's a artifact of our system moving
- the waste stream along more slowly than would be optimal, is what you're saying? That's part of it, sir, yes. Okay. What's the other part? Well, as I mentioned, we had the one particular industrial customer who we politely asked to make an adjustment to their pH system, which they accommodated us voluntarily. Okay. And they feed into Dilman or Blucher? That was going to Blucher. Okay. Thank you.
- Any other questions or comments? I'd like to ask your approval for the resolution so that we can go to Common Council. I move we approve resolution 2025-10, proposed ordinance amendments to Title 10. Second. Motion and second. All in favor please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Motion approved. Thank you.
- Next we have request approval of resolution 2025-11 bid rejection for Blucher Pool wastewater treatment facility SCADA improvements. Dan Hudson. I'm Dan Hudson, the capital projects manager for the city of Bloomington and I'd like the board to consider resolution 2025-11
- It's to reject all the bids that we received on May 19th for the upgrade of the SCADA system at the Blucher Pool wastewater treatment plant. We received two bids. Both bids were incomplete and considered non-responsive. So we would like to go out and do it again, see if we can get more responsive bids. I'm open to questions. Questions or comments for Dan?
- I move we approve resolution 2025-11, the bid rejection for Lutcher Pools skater improvements. Second. Motion is second. All in favor please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Motion is approved. Thank you. Item nine is request approval of agreement for services with All Seasons Heating and Air Conditioning Company, Incorporated.
- Hector Ortiz-Sanchez. Good evening, Hector Ortiz, Assistant Director of Operations. I'm here to request an approval for, yeah, like you said, this is for a HVAC unit that needs to be replaced in the head work at Blucher Pool.
- The amount of the contract will be $42,600. I'm here to answer any questions. Any questions or comments for Hector? Hearing none, do we have a motion for approval? I move we approve the agreement for services with all seasons. Second. Motion and second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, say nay. Motion is approved. Thank you.
- Next, request approval of agreement for services with GRIP Inc. Matt Dabbertine, or Cadence Swanson. Hi, good evening, everybody. Matt's feeling a little under the weather today, so I'm filling in for him. I'm here to request approval of the agreement for services with GRIP Inc. for $65,210.65. This is an annual contract we do with GRIP that is for maintenance of our smart meters,
- and excuse me, our smart covers as well as access to the data. The biggest change from last year is that the contract will now include routine monthly maintenance, which should help keep them running better than they have in previous years. I'm happy to answer any questions. Question I have is, was it on an as needed basis or was it quarterly before? It was on an as needed basis. It was generally in response to them going down.
- Are there any other questions? Oh, sorry. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this the product that is placed in the sewer system that helps us to measure the fill? Correct. Yeah, the amount of water coming through. Have we seen data on this at all? Has the board seen the data? I want to say one meeting we did.
- I've slept since then, but I want to say that we have. We have presented some of this data when we've talked about I&I. That's how we're using that to measure inflow and infiltration spikes. And everybody's feeling, as staff feels that this is a helpful product for us to have and we're able to respond appropriately? Absolutely. Great. Yeah, this helps us identify sanitary sewer overflows as well, which is huge.
- Remind me, are we leasing these devices from grip or do we own them? We own them. Thank you, Phil. I always forget that one. What's the value of what's a new? What's a new one unit of the 21 cost? Just ballpark. For the 21.
- for the 21 units? Okay. Okay. But we own these. Okay. Thank you. So the summary says potential overflows and infiltration by rainwater. So I assume we're
- or monitoring is 24-7. Correct, yes. It's always collecting data. And when there's an expected high rain event, do we do extra monitoring? We do. Can make adjustments or? It's generally tougher to make these adjustments kind of on the fly, but it's constantly
- We're gathering the data and comparing it to the spikes from rain that we see, as well as the spikes in the level in the sewer. And then we can inform our decision to say, well, hey, this was probably a bunch of infiltration coming in here. This was maybe not infiltration, it was inflow or some other event. And from there, we can base our decisions of lining projects and sanitary replacement off of this data. And I was also thinking in terms of when we have a lift station fail,
- or a power outage, you might be able to deploy assets to avoid overflows. Does it work that way, or am I stretching things here a bit? Not quite. The meters, the smart covers, are a little bit more difficult to move. They get drilled into the side of the manhole, and then they have an antenna that kind of comes up onto the surface.
- So it's kind of harder to move these on the fly. When grip comes down, it usually takes them a day to move a couple of them. Yeah, of course you get the other monitors that monitor those stations anyway. Correct, yeah. OK, thanks. Follow up on that question. So are we receiving this information in real time? Yes, yeah, we have real data. So we could put on some sort of threshold that said if they get to this level, then that alerts someone.
- because in the past, these levels have led to overflows or near overflows, right? So you could, you could do that theoretically. Yeah. I'm not sure how practical exactly that would be, but yes, theoretically. And I remember a year and a half ago, we cut out one of our, uh, weather stations that we were collecting data from. Are we still making the correlations between the, what the rainfall in certain areas and these
- these flow meters and how's that going? Do we find that we have enough weather stations with that one being cut? Right. This is maybe a question for Matt Daberton, who I can follow up with on some of these questions and we can get back to you. I will say that we are still trying to keep the rainfall as localized to the area that we're receiving that from. So prior to us putting rain meters around town, we just had the airport rain data. That was the closest NOAA
- verified station so since we've put other stations around town we've had more accurate results and we have been trying to compare it based off of that but all the other parts of the question honestly are great questions for him and we'd be happy to follow up on that. Do you know how many stations we have around town right now? I believe we have one at each of the plants and one here so four. So one around town. Yeah that's right.
- Anything else for Kayden? All right, I move approval of the agreement for services with Brip Incorporated. Second. Motion and second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, say nay. Request is approved. Thank you, Kayden. Next, request approval of the First Amendment to agreement with Coco Singh Industrial Inc. Dan Hudson.
- I'm Dan Hudson, Capital Projects Manager, and I'd like the board to consider the resolution to the Kokosing Project for the safety and process improvement at the Dillman Wastewater Treatment Plant. This is for a time of material amendment with a not to exceed of 24,009 for lead abatement of pipes.
- I'm open to questions. Yeah. So these were pipes in the plant? Yes. With the lead. So there's no danger from the lead? Or is there? Yeah. These are large diameter steel pipes that were installed
- probably 1980, 1979. And our research shows that in 1978, lead paint was banned on a residential level, but it's still not banned for large industrial treatment facilities like ours. And Kokosing, being a very diligent contractor, tested the paint themselves before, because they're going to have to cut this pipe.
- And it did show some lead, not a lot, but they tested in two locations. One location is up above on the mezzanine area and it only had 0.0053% by weight of lead in it. The one below that they're gonna have to do at the bottom had 0.18% by weight, which is a little higher. Both of them are far below EPA guidelines.
- EPA guidelines are 0.5%. But there's another guideline, which I recently learned about. It's 0.06%. That's the Consumer Protection Safety Council. I never heard of this group. That's a guideline. But the main guidelines that COCING has to follow is the OSHA guidelines, which says that if you have any lead,
- then you have to go through an abatement process for your workers. And that's what we're doing, is having the abatement process done by Kokosing to protect their own workers. So there was no danger to customers of water prior to this abatement? Yeah, no. Well, this is on the wastewater side, for what? So no problem. OK. That's good.
- The abatement, there's several things. They have to test the workers before blood test and then after they do it to see if there's an increase of blood level. And also they monitor the air. The idea is that you don't want the lead to be volatilized in the air when they go through and saw cut it. You want to keep it encapsulated. But now we know we have lead down there, probably lead in other places too that
- kind of is going to change our view of how we're going to conduct projects in the future on stuff. Any other questions? Yeah. Thanks. I hesitate to speak anymore. Don't. It's true. So we talk about making sure that Cocosines workers are safe when they're doing this. But what are we doing to make sure that our staff members are safe in the building
- And like, let's say one of their staff members while doing this does test higher or something. Do we have any reason to be concerned for our own staff? Well, I'm going to answer the second part of that question first. The second part is what happens if Cocosine workers test higher than their normal background level lead concentration.
- That's why we're asking Kukosing to be responsible for the abatement process. So they have the responsibility for their own workers and not us. Our workers, we have to make sure that they're not in an area why they do the cutting of the stuff. Otherwise, lead and paint is not really hazardous. I mean, it's there, but as long as it's
- doesn't become volatilized, or you eat the chips, you know, lead chips or something. It's usually OK. And if you paint over it with good industrial strength, that encapsulates it. And that's considered appropriate treatment. And so we may do that, go back and have contracts for painting. Has the original paint already been painted over? Not that I'm aware of.
- That's what kind of spurred some of the painting we've done. I think last meeting, while I was in the consent decree, I asked for a contract for deco coating. And they're doing some painting. And we're going to continue with that. And there's some rust spots on it. That's why we were looking at, well, it's time to paint this. But we didn't realize that.
- Maybe it's time to paint it too, because the lead is also there. Great questions, great conversation. All right, I move approval of the first amendment to the agreement with Kokosing Industrial Corp. Second. Motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, say nay. Request is approved. Thank you.
- Item number 12, request approval of amendment number one to agreement with SET Environmental. Isabel. Good evening. I'm Isabel Quiroz. I'm the Hazmat Coordinator for the Environmental Division and presenting an amendment for a contract with SET Environmental. This was for them cleaning the acoustic soda tanks at Monroe Plant.
- The amendment is for an additional $54,973.50. The original contract was for $92,183.56. So the new total with the amendment would be $147,157.06. This would be pending controller's approval. Do you have any questions you would like to ask me?
- Any questions or comments for Isabelle? Hearing none, do we have a motion for approval? I move we approve request of, we approve amendment number one to the agreement with set environmental. Second. Second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Approved. Thank you. Um,
- Next, we have request approval of unpaid leave of absence. Kat Zager. I can report on the proceeds of our executive session earlier and move approval of the leave of absence for Christopher Vaughn in accordance with our established personnel policies. Thank you.
- We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. I'll open it up for discussion. All in favor? Did you have anything to add, Kat? Okay. Motion and a second. All in favor? Please say aye. Aye. All opposed? Say nay. Request is approved. Thank you for that, Mr. White. Moving along. Item 14. Old business. Any old business from the board?
- Old business from staff. New business, new business from the board. New business from staff. We didn't have any subcommittees this week. Staff reports. The first time in a while, no. You're kidding me. That's my favorite part of that.
- Petitions and communications. Any petitions or communications from the public? Hearing none, do we have a motion for adjournment? Meeting is adjourned.