Town Manager’s Report to Mayor and Town Council

August 16, 2010

East Chilhowie Street Bridge Situation

A preconstruction conference was held on the East Chilhowie Street Bridge Project on July 29, 2010 at 2:00 at the Town Hall. While the conference was non mandatory, four contractors were present. They were Ken Construction of Lebanon, Inland Construction of Bristol, Tennessee (the contractor that reconstructed the bridge in 2005), Lansford Brothers of Roanoke, and Burleigh Construction of Lynchburg. Representatives of Mattern and Craig (M&C) were also in attendance, along with Assistant Engineer Todd Long and me.

Standard, boiler plate items were discussed at the meeting including bid dates and construction standards. Substantial Completion is to be achieved within 60 days of Notice to Proceed. There will be a $500 penalty per day if the substantial completion is not reached.

One contractor was fairly adamant that he could not begin the work before November 1, 2010. After discussing this date with personnel with M&C, they felt that the contractor with this time issue was a very credible one and one who could very well be the low bidder. Because of the contractor’s time issue, and the possibility that he might not be able to bid on the project if it was not moved into the future, I agreed to move the Notice to Proceed from September 1 to November 1 at that meeting. It was my impression that if the other contractors present got the bid that they would start closer to September 1. If in fact the contractor with the time issue gets the low bid, but Council wants to start before November 1, Council could refuse the bid and go to next low bidder assuming that contractor could start earlier than November 1. I did not anticipate that changing the date of the Notice to Proceed by 60 days would, if it works out that way, be a major issue considering the bridge has been closed since May of 2009.

Bids will be received at 2:00 on August 13, 2010. At this writing the bids have not been received but I will have that information to Council on August 16.

Bid Schedule of Influent Pumps at the Sewer Treatment Plant

You have in your agenda packet an advertisement for the influent pumps at the sewer treatment plant. We put this ad together following the Council meeting on August 2.

On August 4 Engineer Cecil Hicks, Water and Wastewater Director of Operations Donnie Coley, Chief Operator Doug Teater, and Lane Engineer Jeff Spickard met to discuss this project. We decided at that meeting that we would spec the project with our own staff and came up with a schedule of completion.

As you can see by the ad, we advertised it in the Bristol Herald Courier on August 8 and August 15. A prebid meeting will be held on August 19 at 2:00 at the Town Hall. Bids will be received and opened on August 26, at 2:00. We will present those bids to Council at its September 7 meeting. As discussed above we are developing ing a simple set of specifications for the project. As the advertisement indicates those specifications are available at the sewer treatment plant.

With the elimination of the line item for the purchase and installation of the influent pumps, the total estimated cost of the other repairs on the sewer treatment cost should be around $606,000. This includes repair of the UV system, replacement of the roof at the lab, replacement of a biotower and installation of controls on the influent pumps. Although we have yet to receive a letter of conditions from Rural Development, at a 40 year rate of two to three percent, I am still hopeful we can start this project in early 2011.

This amount does not include the replacement of the digester, estimated at $500,000 (comprising a 50/50 grant loan) which will be a separate project. The status of that project is that our Attorney Mark Fenyk is reviewing the Thompson and Litton Contract. That review should be done very shortly.

Notice of Violations (NOV) at Sewer Treatment Plant

You have in your agenda packet a NOV issued to the Town of Marion on July 29 and the town’s response letter on August 3. The NOV notification detailed two violations, one concerning the E. Coli limits and one the timing on applying biosolids (sludge) at the Rich Valley Farm.

Concerning the UV violation, we know that our ultra violet (UV) system is aging and in need of replacement. Limits are going to be harder to meet for our present UV system, especially in hot weather. We have been anticipating NOVs regarding this parameter. We have been planning the replacement of the system for some time. In fact, we applied for $400,000 from the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) in 2009 from their $90,000,000 stimulus package but did not receive funding.

The preliminary engineering report on the project was completed in May and funding is being obtained, as our response letter indicated. We hope to start replacement of the UV system early next year, as I mentioned above.

Concerning the violation concerning the parameter of giving the DEQ a 14 day notice before we applied the sludge, I believe our response letter clearly explains that situation. Because of the timing of the getting the contract signed on the farm for the application of sludge, anticipated weather conditions and DEQ’s requirement that we can apply the sludge when the hay is no higher than six inches, we had to deliver the sludge on the dates we did in early June. If we had missed that timeline we could not have applied the spring sludge application and our storage shed would have run over again resulting in sludge being stored out in the open, leading to unmanageable quantities, and potentially to other DEQ citations.

As our response letter states “When we received the contract (between the town and Mr. Scott Waddle in Rich Valley) it was immediately faxed to Mr. McCroskey (of DEQ), and written notification was given that the town intended to start land application on June 2, 2010. This allowed only six days notification (to DEQ), but due to the fact that Mr. Waddle had already cut his hay crop, (and the new crop was rapidly growing up) and impending weather conditions, we felt it absolutely necessary to begin as soon as possible so that we could begin to empty our storage building before the hay crop grew to greater than six inches, which would have violated our application regulations”.

Bids on Town Property at Sewer Treatment Plant

You have in your agenda an advertisement for rental rights on the land the Town of Marion owns just west of the sewer treatment plant. The advertisement was run on July 31 and

August 7. Bids on the property are due at 11:00 on August 13, 2010.

The only difference in the bid sheet this year compared to when it was first advertised three years ago is that the lease was extended from three years in duration to five years. A five year lease was used to secure other town rented properties including the 40 acre property near the water treatment plant and the five acre property near the water intake pump station at the Middle Fork of the Holston River. Those property leases will not be up until a couple of more years. As with the bids for the East Chilhowie Street Bridge, the sewer treatment plant boundary bids are not available at this writing but will be provided to Council at the August

16 meeting.

Respectfully Submitted,

John E. B. Clark, Jr.

Town Manager