The Blaine County Journal News-Opinion - We've Got The County Covered

Before its regular February meeting the Chinook Council heard the first presentation of a Preliminary Engineering Report (PER) that addresses issues with the city's water distribution system. The PER serves as a planning document to help the council prioritize work to be done on the distribution system. A PER is required to successfully apply for grants to finance the upgrade. Two years ago the city began the process and submitted its first grant application which was not funded. The regular monthly council meeting followed the presentation of the recommendations to upgrade the water distribution system.

Preliminary Engineering Report on the city's water distribution system

LeAnn Wiegand, a water engineer with Morrison Maierle (an engineering firm), was involved with the recently completed upgrade to the water treatment plant and planning for the water distribution improvements since 2011. She said, "The basic needs of the water distribution system were identified when we started this process several years ago." She added that the city made progress on some of the original problems including replacing faulty fire hydrants and adding valves that allowed isolating of parts of the system when main leaks or other problems occur.

Wiegand said funding institutions especially want to see there has been public input to the preliminary engineering report. "This time," she explained, "we'll have a process

where city residents can have direct input on selecting and prioritizing the upgrades to the water distribution system. The list of needed upgrades includes moving the bulk water filling station, presently next to the plant, to an area more easily accessible to bulk water haulers. Wiegand also noted that about 60% of the city's distribution system was built before 1980 and that aging accounts for much of the challenges to keep the system maintained and operating.

To give citizens an opportunity to express their opinions about priorities of the distribution system upgrade, a board showing the needs of the system has been created and is in the lobby of city hall. Residents are encouraged to 'vote' for their priorities from the list of needed upgrades (see attached photo) . That information will help the council decide the order in which specific improvements will be completed. The engineering firm has created a similar poster showing the city's capital improvement plan, a planning document to assess the city's needs 20 years in to the future.

February's monthly meeting dealt with regular business, snow removal issues and private water lines

Mayor Keith Hanson called February's regular meeting to order. All council members were present including Mitch Haider, Robert Smith, Meredy Phares and Clint Greytak. Several city department heads attended as well as the Blaine County Sanitarian, two representatives of Montana DEQ's Public Water Supply Bureau, the engineer with Morrison Maierle and other visitors. Minutes of the November, December and January council meetings were approved as received by the council. Regular claims and reports were approved. There was no public comment.

City department heads made their reports. Jim Teel, city streets and buildings, said, "We are dealing with snow removal and repairing snow removal equipment. We will continue to load and haul as much snow as we can and get it off the city streets." Police Chief Elmer Zarn reported that everything was on track for new Patrolman Will Robb to attend the police academy in April. Zarn also said the four-wheel drive vehicle purchased from the county is working out well. Eric Miller, wastewater treatment, said his crew was preparing for a new electrical panel to be installed in May. He's also been searching for a replacement pump for one that no longer has parts available to repair it.

John Blankenship, water treatment, reported that James Des Rosier was hired at the water plant to fill a vacancy. He also noted that each of two trains (the main tanks that are used to clear water for processing) were "taken down, one at a time, for maintenance." Fire Chief Kraig Hansen said there were no fires last month in the city. Despite the frigid weather, calls outside town posed no major problems to control.

Only the council's ordinance committee had a report: the city attorney was reviewing 'decay' regulations for the city. In the mayor's report he noted he, along with Jim Teel and Chief Zarn, were trying to deal with snow removal issues and complaints. He expressed appreciation to all the city's employees for dealing with such a tough winter adding, "It's been an unusually rough winter and everyone has responded as best they could given the situation."

Mayor Hanson said he and Blaine County Sanitarian Ron Anderson had met several times to discuss private water lines and the issues related to them. Hanson thanked the department heads for working with engineer Wiegand as she gathered and reviewed information to be included in the capital improvement plan.

New Business

Sanitarian Ron Anderson explained the situation with several private water lines coming off the city's main lines. Basically a private water line is one that comes off the city's water distribution system but is outside the regular city system. Anderson said, "Over the years these proliferated and many of them, because of the number of connections and number of people served, now meet the definition of a public water system." With public water systems there are regular water testing requirements and other system obligations. Anderson introduce two representatives from Montana DEQ's Public Water Supply Bureau in Helena.

They each outlined the state requirements of public water systems. One of the DEQ's major concerns is "who is responsible for each of these private water lines, that now are public water systems." Jon Dilliard and Eugene Pizzini, both with DEQ, said there are several issues that need to be addressed, especially, "If there are major repairs required. The DEQ needs to know who to contact to fix a public health problem because of problems with water." Dilliard and Pizzini laid out several options about how the ownership of the lines could be handled. The city council decided, after a good bit of public discussion, to move the topic to a work session so they could effectively deal with how to handle these water lines. There appear to be about five major lines that have developed over the years.

Councilman Robert Smith had asked for the topic of snow removal to be on the agenda. He, and other council members and the mayor, have had complaints about the condition of the city streets and sidewalks during this winter of heavy snows. Jim Teel said, "Part of the problem is where to stack so much snow. If people push their snow from driveways and sidewalks into the street it just makes the problem worse as more snow gets packed down."

Teel added that using contractors to remove the snow is going to help the problem but also be very costly. The city currently does not have adequate equipment to handle such unusual amounts of snow. One proposal was to study the creation of snow routes that would be cleared for emergency vehicles. Another proposal was to consider an ordinance to limit snow being pushed from private property into the streets or onto city sidewalks. Smith said he invited several people to come to the council meeting but none attended the meeting.

The last item of new business was for the council to cancel check # 2544. That was a check for mileage to a city employee to pick up the newly acquired patrol car after it had new decals and signage. The people doing the signage brought the vehicle to Great Falls to be picked up, reducing the amount of mileage to be paid for pick up. Motion made and approved to cancel the check, it was replaced with a check for a lesser amount.

Motion was made to adjourn. The next council meeting will be Tuesday, March 13. The second PER meeting about the upgrade to the water distribution system will be made that night at 5:30 pm with the monthly council meeting to follow at 7 pm.