Water Tower Updates and Wastewater Operations At Monthly Water Board Meeting

Oskaloosa Water Department

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The Oskaloosa Water Board met on Monday afternoon, where they paid the monthly bills, and heard reports on wastewater and water department operations.

The board heard about the water main replacement taking place along South D street, and approved a pay application from the contractor Dave Schmitt.

Also on the agenda was the consideration and discussion of a change order from Maguire Iron Inc, in regards to the water tower painting project.

The change order is in the amount of $51,800 for extra work needed on the north water tower. Since it was more than the amount set in the contingency set by the board when the project was approved, the budget would have to be amended.

Those changes included the additional work of brush painting the pitted areas inside the tower. Caulking roof seams, as well as the caulking of plug holes in the roof and the installation of #4 mesh screen around the perimeter of the roof.

The board also discussed the permit form for the water main construction for Marje Addition.

During wastewater discussions, Coon’s report outlined several jetting operations that took place around the city, as well as the use of televising equipment to assess needed work.

The grit tank that is trailer mounted at the south plant was replaced with a new unit because the old one failed and began to leak.

Also at the south plant, work on the sludge pumps was performed on units that kept clogging and overheating.

The backflow preventers in the digester at the south plant were replaced after failing.

Coon reported that work continues on replacing the valve on the upper EQ basin, which failed and needs replaced, and contact was made with Clow to obtain the necessary valve.

Staff met with the DNR to review Discharge Monitoring Reports from the north plant to determine how best to calculate plant flows when recirculating water for the trickling filter.

For the water plant, there were two water main breaks during the past month. One was a crack on the 10 inch main on Lincoln Avenue between 220th and 230th street, which is the first one on that line in the past ten years. That line is one of the transmission mains from the plant to town.

The other leak was a crack on a 4 inch main on North park after it splits from South Park. Coon said that area had several leaks over the past five years.

The fire hydrant at William Penn University was replaced because the old one wouldn’t open all the way.

The hydrant across from Taco John’s has been hit several times, and it was relocated further north.

Another hydrant was replaced on South F between 21st Avenue West and 263rd Street, because of issues of causing flooding to a residential basement.

The last hydrant work was to install a new one in front of Titan Machinery, to allow for better fire protection to the industrial park area.

July of 2018 was the lowest it has been in 12 years of keeping track of those numbers when 34,537,000 gallons were pumped to town. That is 6,000,000 gallons less than last year.

There were 85 water disconnects which is down some from last month, but still higher than the department would like to see.