Jul. 7—CONNEAUT — City council toured the city's water treatment plant on Tuesday night, and was briefed on the progress of an improvement project taking place at the facility.
Water Superintendent Richard Neubauer showed members of council around the facility, and described some of the upgrades taking place.
New, more energy efficient variable frequency drives are being installed, he said.
City Manager Jim Hockaday said when the current static drive pumps are on, they are always running as hard as they can, and a valve is used to control how much water comes into the plant.
"It's not good on the pumps, it's not good on the motors and it's not very energy efficient either," Hockaday said. "So VFDs are designed, when they run at 80 percent of the efficiency, they're running 50 percent of the electric draw of that same static drive pump."
The new pumps will also help prevent icing issues in the plant's intake pipe during the winter.
Hockaday showed members of council an erosion protection wall that was installed in 2019, in order to protect the pumps that draw the city's water supply from Lake Erie from record high water levels in the lake.
One future improvement the plant will need is a replacement of its powder activated carbon system, he said.
Neubauer also gave an update on the status of new filters that are being installed at the facility.
Testing is being conducted on one of the plant's four filters, after the upgrades to that filter were recently completed.
"Hopefully by the end of the week, we'll be able to get that online," Neubauer said.
Hockaday said the project has been in the works for years.
Water Distribution Manager Skip Ensman was on-hand to talk about the city's new valve turning machine.
"A lot of our valves in our system are over 100 years old, they're full of scale, they don't turn, and we have to establish a valve turning program," Ensman said.
The trailer includes a jackhammer, pressure washer, and small suction system to help workers access valves to shut them down. It does the job of two employees using a key to shut a valve, Ensman said.
"The biggest thing is injuries," he said. "We've had a lot of guys hurt their backs yanking on these valves.
"In the middle of the night, you've got to fix a water main break, it's nice to have something like this," he said. "The guys don't have to wear themselves out getting the shut down, just so you can start working on jackhammering frost or things like that to get to a water main break."
The machine has more than doubled the number of curb stops water distribution crews can repair per day.
The trailer cost the city around $60,000, Ensman said.
Hockaday said the last worker's compensation claim from a valve turning incident cost the city more than $65,000.
After the tour, council's monthly work session took place.
A special work session will take place on Monday, July 11 at 5:30 p.m. to discuss the city's planned dredged material facility.
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