Ultrasonic water meters discussed at Hawesville Council Meeting

The Hawesville City Council met on Tuesday evening, June 11th, and Matt Curtis, Co-Owner of Bluegrass Engineering, provided an update on projects. Sales Representatives from Fortiline Meter Company also presented to the Council.

There was lengthy discussion on the possibility of the City purchasing new water meters that are ultrasonic and much more accurate at reading. Mayor Rob McCormick said discussion will continue at the next meeting. All of the City’s current meters (drive-by tech meters) are out of warranty.

The new meters would make for huge cost savings on manpower, fuel, and catching water leaks quicker, etc. The manual readings the City’s crewmen have to do monthly wouldn’t be necessary, as the new system has software that sends out a cellular signal, reads the meter once an hour, stores the data and 3 times a day sends a text message that is logged to a webpage assigned to the City’s Admin. It generates the billing data and provides access to the meter readings directly to the water customer; They can log directly into the portal and see what their meter readings are.

Budget Amendment

The second reading of the City’s Budget Amendment (02-04) was completed. McCormick asked the Council to look the numbers over and notice that they haven’t changed since the last reading. The Amendment was then accepted, and the next step in the process is to publish it.

New Budget

The first reading of the New Budget was completed for Fiscal Year July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025, estimating revenues, resources and appropriation funds. Details of the budget proposal have been reviewed by the Council and it is has been adopted. The Special Meeting was set for Tuesday, June 18th at 6:30 p.m. to pass it after the second reading.

City Manager’s Report 

Hawesville City Manager Jake Powers said, “For our Land and Water Conservation grant for our project, we have recently had a survey done on that. As soon as we get the findings from that we’ll pass that along to GRADD and they will instruct me on how to move forward with the start-up.

We started our Phase 1 site visits today. We had the environmentalist working with us with the Brownfield Project and to look at our 2 Main Street properties. They said that normally those will go for about $5K. And this is coming at no cost to us. We had about $10K worth of work done today, at no cost to the City.

We also visited the 2 properties and had Phase 1 site assessments for those as well. We also need to start looking at scheduling our next Brownfield Town Hall Meeting. Shane Barton (Downtown Revitalization Coordinator with CEDIK) is working with us on this. He’s really happy with how it’s going so far.

At the blue house downtown, the side door was stuck open. They immediately said, ‘We’re not going in there.’ They said that it is coming down, basically.

The Presbyterian Church, they were pleased with that structure. There were some minor household EPA type issues that they mentioned briefly. They said it will definitely have potential to be revitalized. We’re going to get reports on all of this; that way we’ll have all of their direct comments.”

Police Report

Hawesville Chief of Police B.J. Burton was absent and McCormick read his report saying, “May was a healthy and exciting month for everyone. I know here, as Chief, it was eventful and significant. Citations were: two stop signs, 4 improper passing speed, 10 warrants – 9 served in city limits, 1 civil citation and 15 traffic stops without citation. I made contact with 25 vehicles and it does not include roadside assistance, nuisance complaints or calls taken within the City. The HCHS students that needed some hours, we’ve painted the side of the street and some parking spaces coming up the street to mark for parking.”

McCormick said, “I feel like B.J. is doing a very good job for us. He’s carrying on with some of the past practices that our chief had, who is here tonight (former Chief of Police Cody Axton).”

Fire Dept. Report

Hawesville Fire Chief Shane Richards reported, “The totals for the month of May are 39 different calls, 35 of those were fire, the rest were rescue. That takes our yearly total up to substantially higher than last year’s.

We received our new pagers with the upgrade to the new digital system. We’re finishing up on the boat to put it into service. Right now, several different upgrades in the station – LED lighting, etc. This weekend was State Fire School. We didn’t send anybody this year. We’ll continue with our in-house training at least twice a month.”

McCormick asked if they have found any avenues for possible funding for the new air packs they need. Richards said they are still looking and haven’t yet. “We’re trying to find some things also,” McCormick said. “Jake’s been working diligently on that.”

Storm Water Project

Matt Curtis reported, “Several months ago, we had to increase the budget for the Storm Water Project. That request to FEMA has been approved. In the meantime, GRADD has been working on the matching funds to take care of the City’s portion of that, and 5.2 percent was the low match. The new budget number of $3.35M took it up $174K.

We’ve gotten word that the City will have a zero cost facility. We’re expecting to see the Local Match Participation Program Grant, which is the grant for the City, after the start of the fiscal year on July 1.

The next steps on it is mechanical design, the structure and all mechanical and electrical components of it, including the force mains (pipelines) going up over the levee area are going to be completely gutted. When it’s done the bones are still going to be there but all of the mechanical equipment and electrical components are going to be brought up 7 decades from when it was first put in (the current plant was installed in the early 50s).

The electrical design is just getting started. That’s one of the requirements for the Army Corps of Engineers. We have to meet their electrical standards before we have our next process. Once that takes place, we’re looking to try to bid this late 3rd quarter into the 4th quarter of this year.”

Phase One of the entire project will be the sluice gate, he said. That will be the top priority of the contractor who’s bid is accepted later in the year. In the meantime, other equipment will be used to raise the gate until the plant is fully built. “When the river comes up,” he said, “we can shut the sluice gate and then we can pump. Right now, we have to have other equipment means to raise that gate until this thing is fully built.”

Cleaner Water Program

“The state has come out with the Cleaner Water Program (Bipartisan Infrastructure Law New Funding 2022 to improve drinking H2O & wastewater). State legislature reorganized how the grant funding will come in. Previously, it came down to KIA (KY Infrastructure Authority) and then they would come to the local officials and determine what the priorities were in the community and then it was dispersed.

Now, the state legislature has gotten involved and KIA is going to rank them. Those rankings are going to go to state legislature and then next spring the legislature is going to [divvy those out]. That is a funding source that we’re looking at for several future projects for the City of Hawesville.

We’ll be looking at a project award knowing that we’re getting funding in April 2025. That window is open right now but the state hasn’t provided an application to submit. That window closes August 15th, 2024. We know what we’ve got to do and we’ll get that taken care of.”

Contact State Reps

Curtis said this is an opportunity for City officials and citizens of Hancock County to contact local state representatives, state senators, etc., and tell them that this is a HUGE priority for the City of Hawesville to get this funding.

Regional Water Plant

He continued saying, “The Hancock County Regional Water Plant ranked Second in the entire state of KY for the drinking water project. That project will be funded this round of revolving funds. How that money is coming down, 100 percent loan or a percentage of it being up for forgiveness, we don’t know at this point until the Intended Use Plan comes out. I was talking with KIA today and they’re thinking that it will be at the end of summer before that plan comes out. As more details come up about that we will come back and make sure you guys are updated.”

Future Projects

He added, “With future projects for the City of Hawesville, one of the things we were meeting about was talking about the regional water plant and making sure that we’ve gotten some of the problems as far as what is out there in your distribution, where they are having to go and make repeated repairs over and over again, and closing the system up by creating more loops so you don’t have dead end lines.

This is so they are not having to flush water and put water on the ground – all measures to get you to the point of – if and when you decide to become a non-producer and if you’re purchasing water that you’re able to sell every drop of water that you possibly can instead of putting it out on the ground.

There are 3 projects that we’re working on with Superintendent Brian Patterson and GRADD to get those in and apply for funding. There are 2 water system improvements. Phase One has a bunch on lines in areas we have issues in distribution. The Center Booster Station has been an issue with piping failures, and [correcting issues] on Harrison Street, Main Cross, etc., and also creating some loops out on KY 69 and Old Hartford Rd.

Phase 2 is with the pump station- here recently, the Cities had tanks inspected. The inspector told me that we might as well count on interior and exterior minor structural repairs. There are the 2 unused tanks on Hawes Blvd. and Fred Hodges, and there’s the Donna Lou Ln. Water Main that we’ve had issues with.

One other, is the Windward Heights Lift Station. It is something that Brian and the crew are having issues with. It’s not in a good location. One solution we’ve talked about is moving it away from the intersection down into that grassy field area, to where an accident wouldn’t cause damage which has happened before.”

Force Main Project

“The KYTC (KY Transportation Cabinet) Force Main Project (conveying wastewater from a lower to higher elevation) – we’ve been working with the KY Finance & Administration Cabinet. It was put out for bids. There were zero bids received on May 30. Their process is a nightmare to work with is my guess why there were no bids. If you don’t do things a certain way it kicks back. They have put it back out to private quotation through KYTC. We provided names of several contractors that we’re familiar with that we feel would be a good fit for this project. We’re waiting for those bids to come in.”

Regionalizing

The amount of funding for regionalizing is huge right now, McCormick said. Curtis explained why saying, “I’ve been talking with (GRADD Executive Director) Joanna Shake and Blake Edge at GRADD and this was the highest ranked project that they’ve ever had come out of the counties they serve.

The reason for that is last year Hawesville was not listed in that project profile. It was 101st ranked in the state last year. This year, there was a discussion about Hawesville interconnect – a stand alone plant that both cities would be purchasing the water from and there was more of that regionalization talk and then it went from 101st to 2nd. It is HUGE. The state put a ton of money in what they are calling ‘generational projects’. If you check certain boxes, they are throwing money at them.

They’re looking at multi-million dollar projects to try to get all these small communities, as many of them as they can, to compliance with what is coming down with the regulations of the emerging contaminants, which are PFAS (plastic chemicals). These have to be removed from drinking water and eventually will have to be removed from wastewater and, all the while, the manufacturing of those chemicals is still occurring. Removing something that is continuing to be produced – you’re never going to be able to get it out of the water systems, but that’s where the EPA is going and we will have to all follow suit.”

McCormick said, “They are really pushing hard for regionalization and we’ve all talked. I don’t want to regionalize east at all. We definitely don’t want to regionalize west or south, into Daviess County, etc. If we do, we want to within our County to where we’re all getting the funding and can have better opportunities, but before we buy a single drop, these lines will be replaced as infrastructure, these worst places. That is going to give us the opportunity to get the money to do the infrastructure by tacking it onto a regionalization.

We’ve not committed to anything. All we’re doing is saying we’re interested. We are willing to take a look at it but if we were to do it tomorrow, we’d spend twice the money that we’re spending right now on the water because you’re buying the water then, you’re not producing.”

Curtis said, “There are multiple costs associated with what the fee is for the thousand gallons that you all would be purchasing. The whole premise in all of the discussions we’ve had of here and in Lewisport is that it is equal for both communities.

The regionalization – they’re pushing it along with the emerging contaminants. There was a push for OMU (Owensboro Municipal Utilities) to come east and at that time (25-30 years ago), it was $15M-$16M then. To give you a point of reference, OMU just spent $50M in that range. They are getting ready to go ahead and go back and put another $30M into that plant to meet PFAS regulations.

The technology has been looked at. For Lewisport’s plant it’s been taken care of from day one. We’re not going to have to go back. The cost of the emerging contaminants are staggering. It’s not a one time you build it and it’s done. You have to go back and replace your filter every so many years. It is never ending.”

By Jennifer Wimmer