Meeting Minutes & Reports

The Plow and chains were removed from the 570 MXT tractor for road and fire break work, other plows will be pulled in the coming weeks for summer roads work.

The burn pile near the trail between plats was burned in early April and went well, Lowell and Kevin each spent some time helping Dan out to be sure things stayed safe.

Dan finished leveling ground along the North fence line to improve the fire break. Lowell has been working on the fence line to keep the cows out when they arrive in early to mid May.

The County came in and added/ repaired culverts between the Plats for drainage and cut the barrow pit in that same area. They also added some road base over the new culverts. I think they plan to add more road base to Mountain Way when they return to do some dust abatement later this spring.

I am waiting for Mother Nature to decide if Spring is really here, before ordering some road base for upgrades on Juniper Dr and Comanche Dr. Planning to put at least 3 loads on each roads, in areas where needed.

DF

Water usage for the last 30 days was 213K gallons, 86K on Plat-B and 124K on Plat-C. These numbers show a reduction on Plat-C numbers and over all check well with recent averages.

April coliform test will go out on 5/20, last months test was colifom absent.

PFAS test results did not detect PFAS in our well water. POA is currently up to date on mandted testing.
The pump radio battery was replaced on Plat-B #3 reservoir on 4/5, and that part of the system has been functioning properly. Will be replacing the other Plat-B batteries in the next few weeks, weather permitting.
Still need to to more set up work on the Solnist telemtry system to get it up and working so we can go ahead with further testing.

I did spend 3 days in Pocatello doing 14 hours of Utility Management Training and passed the test, so I now have a 3 year certification in Utility Management, from NRWA Utility Pro Academy. I will be in Pocatello later this week for a 6 hr DEQ training on PFAS, Lead/Copper and CCR issues as well.

No other major issues or leaks to report at this time.

 

DF

Dumpster gate had some minor issues with the electric eye that senses whether the access is blocked, I realigned it and it seems to be working OK. 1 new Solar panel was added to the system last month. I will be adding a second one soon and an additional battery which should increase reliability.

 

I tried to use our 570 loader and box scraper to reduce the potholes on Mountain Way a week or so ago, but the big slush storm caused the effort to be futile. Fortunately the County came by on 3/9 and did a decent job of grading it. The County will be back in a few weeks to grade all of their roads in the POA. Not sure yet what dust abatement they are planning if any this year.

We had a flat tire on the 570 LXT loader, I put the spare on and took the flat to town for repair.
Seems like winter may be over, the good news is that snow pack in the upper elevations is within the normal range and the recent rains/slush storms have brought some much needed moisture to the area. Still very worried what fire season is going to look like.

The County Fire Marshal is asking for a new permanent levy that will add about $60 per $100K of propert value to your tax bill, if it passes. No sure what he will do with the funds, there is a meeting at the Reserve on 3/12 for him to explain.

Will begin fence repairs as soon as things dry out a bit more, followed by mowing a few more new fire breaks. Will pick up more fence wire when in Soda next week.

Need to decide whether to do dust abatement on our POA roads this year or spend that money to get 9 additional loads of road base to make existing roads better/wider, then dust abate next year.

Water usage for the last 30 day was 232k gallons, 98K on Plat-B and 134K on Plat-C.
These numbers check well with historical data.

PFAS tests were taken and sent to the lab on 2/23, will have to take another set after the end of June.

March Coliform test went out on 3/9, February test came back coliform absent.

The new pump control float in #2 reservoir was defective and has been replaced with a new one and is working well at this time, an additional failure of a small transformer a res #2 was also noted. A replacement transformer is on order and should arrive next week. Until then I must run the #2 pump manually to sent water up to res #3.

 

The guys from Mountain West Water called recently and will finally be sending a quote to take over the Water System Backup position. I will FWD to board for their review.

 

I have begun to try working with the New Solinst water level meter/radio system. So far it is giving me some set up problems, I can get the radios to communicate but the are not processing the sensor data. Might be a defective cable attachment. Will continue to work on issue and advise.

No other leaks or major issues to report ant this time.

Due to the warmer/drier Winter season this year there is not a lot to report at this time. That being said all POA equipment is currently operational, with the possible exception of the Dodge 3500 Plow that is in the care of Lowell.

Very wet/rainy weather caused some problems with roads and drainage early on this winter, and will be a factor again if we see a warm wet spring.

The Dumpster gate is back in service at this time, and a spare belt for the drive motor is on order. Looking at doing some possible upgrades to this system come spring or early summer to improve reliabilty.
Budget wise we are ahead of the game in several areas as we have not had to burn much fuel or heat the shop for repairs or pay additional help to keep up with plowing or plow related repair issues.

Mother Nature can be fickle, and I hope/expect we will see some fairly strong spring storms in the coming weeks. If we do not see any increase in rain/snowfall then we will need to be very careful with fire this summer.

Water usage for the last 30 days cycle was 283K gallons, 93K on Plat-B and 190K on Plat-C. These number are higher than the last year or two, but do reflect the leak on Plat-C which was not fully repaired until Januray 6th and a Plat-B tank#4 float icing issue on Jan 30th with caused a 4 hour over pumping event which also cause some system loss.

DEQ has updated and changed our testing requirements for this year adding two sets of PFAS tests at each well, 1 set in the first half and another set in the second half of the year. I have been in touch with the Anateck lab in Mocsow ID, they are sending 2 sample kits later this month. I will probably take the tests and send them in byy month end. February coliform test will go out on Feb 9th, last months coliform tset was good.

I did get the first batch of Solinst equipment ordered and it has been shipped, cost around $4500. The items should arrive next week, I will unpack and begin familiarizing myself with the products and begin the program/software set up over the next two/three weeks. Field testing will start in March.

 

As for the Plat-C water main repair, it went well and I can see a nice change in system usage. Traditionally the Plat-C well pumed once every 24 hours during slow use periods, that interval has now changed to once every 40 hours. We should see a total puming reduction on Plat-C well over the course of this year. The current telemetry trend line is the flattest I have ever seen on Plat-C, it dose still show a slight level decline but
is certainly much improved.

Main well levels were checked this week and good news, Plat-B well is at 95 feet and Plat-C well is at 64 feet, theses are about a 5 foot increase from October readings. With the dry winter we will have to see how the levels hold out through the summer months, as I doubt they will go any higher unless we get a lot of Spring moisture.

 

I spoke with Jeff Cook our IRWA Circut Rider last month about having a full Water Rate Study done by IRWA, he said there would be a charge to do this if we requested a full staff study by them. He then told me that he did have software that could do pretty much the same type of comparission for free if I provided system information and expense/usage numbers. I sent him everything I could come up with along with our past and present Rate schedules, miles of pipe in ground, # of hook ups, hydrants and valves. He will run that through his program and let us know how it looks.

The higher than average temperatures and rain events have caused a number of road erosion issues, usually by this time of year all roads are frozen solid and run off does not occur until the spring thaw. The red Pine/Juiper intersection has been regraded several times due to washouts, upper juniper was graded and I have used a fair amount of road base to attempt to fill pot holes on Mountain way, as well as trying to deep grade some of the worst areas there.

Snow plowing, when necessary has gone well, except that Lowell is still having problems with the Dodge. Kevin has taken a full time winter job and may not be available to help if real winter conditions arrive as expected with in the next few weeks.

As noted in the water report the water leak on Red Pine has been repaired.

I will be ordering some more fuel in the next week or two, to see us thru to spring.

The dumpster gate failed and was wired open until Lowell can get keys to open up the apparatus and decide if he can figure out how to fix it, he would like us to have Rocky Mountain power run an electrical service to run the gate, but as I seem to recall that might cost $5-10K to accomplish, which is why we went with solar in the first place.

Water usage for the Last 30 days was 427K gallons, 102K on Plat B and 235K on Plat C. The Plat C numbers are high as we had a 15 GPM leak on Red Pine Dr for about 2 weeks.

Red Pine Dr, the water leak on Red Pine has been repaired. The issue was a gasket blow out on an old repair from about 10 years ago. The area was excavated by Clint Bethers and Dan a 40 inch section of pipe was replaced and a new 6” connector was installed near the a 22.5 elbow, a thrust block was laid and the area refilled. So Far it looks like the repair is holding up well and telemtry shows a reduction in water loss from prior to the leak surfacing, so it may have been leaking at a lesser rate for quite sone time. I will FWD Clint Bethers bill to accounting when he submits it to me. I ordered 2 more loads of road base to rehab the roadway, it should come later next week.

 

The January coliform test was sent out on 1/5/26

 

Two of the aquaguage level sensors on Plat-B have failed again, I will try to repair next week. I plan to go ahead and order the first approved set of Solnist level logger equipment later this month so I can begin the testing process to see if this system will work to replace the aquaguage system.

 

I would like the board to consider having sunrise engineering begin work on an engineering/design improvement plan for the lower 3 Plat-B reservoirs. It would basically be a single design effort to add an additional pump and control panel to each of those reservoirs to increase reliability/redundancy for Plat-B. As the reservoirs are all basically the same design 1 engineering plan would cover all three upgrades. Once completed, that plan could be submitted to DEQ for approval. Once approved by DEQ, POA could then upgrade 1 reservoir a year or every other year over the course of several years to spread the costs out. I do not know what all this will cost but expect it to be $60-100K per reservoir depending on the final design. The engineering cost would probably be around $30K ? small backup generators could also be purchased/installed to insure the ability to transfer water during a fire, as we have seen the power company shut power down during wild fire events. This is part of what I have wanted to still discuss with our Board President.

No other leaks/issues to report at this time.