California aldermen discuss heavy rain, trash trucks

Proctor Park Lake was out of its banks this weekend, due to heavy rains.
Proctor Park Lake was out of its banks this weekend, due to heavy rains.

The water runoff from the recent heavy rains was a major topic at the regular monthly meeting of the California Board of Aldermen Monday.

Wastewater Operator Patrick Murphy reported that the wastewater retention basins received about 11 millions gallons of water from the recent rains.

He reported that, before the storms, the south basins were about 100 percent open. The 8.5 million gallons of water the storms put into the system left only 10 percent of the capacity remaining.

Normally, there is a little over 1 million-gallons-a-day processed. Currently, the system is processing about 2.4 million-gallons-a-day, attempting to draw the wastewater down, to make it ready for the next round of rainfall.

That next round is predicted for later this week.

Murphy explained that the water coming into the wastewater system from the city sewer system after such a heavy rainfall is diluted, making it faster to process through the system to be released into the streams.

The problem is that the extra stormwater should not be entering the system at all, so it shouldn't be there to process.

He said the council should consider doing another "smoke study" to determine where all of the extra stormwater, which is entering the system, is coming from. If that can be determined, possibly more sewer pipe lining and other repairs and maintenance can be done to reduce the extra inflow.

If the extra inflow can't be addressed, then the wastewater system capacity should be increased. Either way, Murphy thinks it will be costly.

Another topic discussed at length was the city trash trucks. A question was raised about why some of the trash trucks from years ago lasted longer with less maintenance. One make of truck, owned by the city for several years, gave few engine problems, but the chassis and cab of the vehicles did not hold up under the weight and use of the truck to transport the packer and trash.

Street Supervisor Vic Maurer, who also oversees the trash pickup department, commented that the diesel engines now available must be "Tier III and Tier IV" compliant. This required decrease in emissions from the engines appears to affect the operation of the engines, and increases the problems with maintenance.

While the chassis and cab of the trucks currently in-use hold up, the engines do not. It appears this is common for the diesel engines meeting the current emission standards.

On a related topic, the plans to lease a chassis and buy a trash packer to put on it is no longer a viable option. The company, which was working on the lease of a chassis, is not able to do so. Maurer was directed to seek bids to see what a new trash truck would cost to buy.

Maurer also reported 327 tons of trash picked up in the month of April. This was about 100 tons more than a normal month. The spring cleanup part of the trash was 119.9 tons.

The 2016 sanitary sewer replacement project is underway. The work started on Moniteau Street in the vicinity of Bonecutter's Body Shop. All the work, which involves placing 3,000-feet-of-pipe, is due to be completed Aug. 6.

In other business, the Board of Aldermen elected Resa Dudley, Ward III, as board president.

The next regular monthly meeting is set for June 5.