City Council Minutes 03-14-2005 SpecialCouncil Workshop Minutes — 3/14/05
MINUTES
SPECIAL MEETING — MONTICELLO CITY COUNCIL
Monday March 14, 2005 — 5 p.m.
Members Present: Clint Herbst, Wayne Mayer, Tom Perrault, Glen Posusta and Brian Stumpf.
Members Absent: None
The Council met at the wastewater treatment plant to discuss community growth and its impact on the
wastewater treatment facility and other issues relating to the operation of the City's wastewater
treatment facility.
Deputy City Administrator, Jeff O'Neill presented information on the number of building permits
being issued annually and the new developments that are taking place. It is projected that by the year
2005 Monticello could have a population of 22,800. The population growth will place demands on
the City's infrastructure including the wastewater treatment plan. The City needs to analyze the
impact the growth will have and to plan for expansion of facilities to handle it.
There are a number of issues relating to the wastewater treatment plan that need to be studied if the
City's wastewater treatment plant is to continue to operate within the provisions of their permit. One
of the primary concerns is biosolids. At the present time the biosolids are applied to land owned by
the City. When the wastewater treatment plant was expanded a Class A biosolids process was
included as part of the expansion. The process, however, did not produce Class A biosolids. The City
needs to either acquire additional land for biosolid application or a process to produce Class A
biosolids would have to be incorporated into the treatment process.
Veolia Water, the firm that operates the wastewater treatment plant for the City made a presentation
outlining aspects of the operation of the plant including the impact the Sunny Fresh wastewater permit
has on plant operations. Peg Becker and Chuck Keyes reviewed the design capacity of the plant as far
as gallons of flow per day, biological oxygen demand and total suspended solids. They noted that the
plant is operating at between 50%-60% of design capacity in these areas. In addition they provided a
projection of the system capacity used by year 2010 which they estimated at 75%-80%.
The annual cost for land application of the biosolids is between $20,000-$26,000 a year. The method
the operators used for handling the biosolids was reviewed and problems relating to ammonia and
nitrogen levels were discussed. Veolia Water also provided some options for biosolid applications
which included utilizing the land the City currently owns and landfill any excess biosolids; permit
additional sites for biosolids application; purchase additional land or consider a regional facility to
handle biosolids.
Bolton & Menk provided a more in depth look at the options available for the biosolids handling. The
different criteria for producing Class B —vs- Class A biosolids were reviewed. Class B biosolids are
primarily disposed of by land application. Land application of Class B biosolids is prohibited during
the winter. In addition Class B biosolids must meet standards for fecal coliform. Class A biosolids
must also meet fecal coliform standards but there is greater flexibility in how Class A biosolids can be
disposed off. The improheat system installed at the wastewater treatment plant failed to produce
Council Workshop Minutes — 3/14/05
Class A biosolids and the City is now considering other options for producing Class A biosolids.
These options include ATAD (autothermal thermophilic aerobic digestion); heat and lime treatment
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( (RDP)� temperature phase anaerobic digestions (TPAD) and heat drying. The focus is primarily on
the TPAD and the heat drying options. In determining which options to study a number of factors
were considered: 1) track record of the process; 2) if there was more than one manufacture of the
equipment; 3) did the process utilize the existing biosolids facilities; 4) the process took up minimum
space and 5) lower operation and maintenance costs and low energy costs. Bolton & Menk reviewed
the pros and cons of the two options they were looking at.
The workshop closed at 6: 50 p.m.
Recording Secretary
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