MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MONTHLY BOARD MEETING OF L.A. WATER COOPERATIVE HELD August 26, 2021 VIA ZOOM ONLINE.
Board Members Present: Linda Fountain, Don Wicks, David McAdams, Amber Morgan, Megan Corvus, Tom Gunn
Board Members Absent: Malcolm Moreno, Lisa Dutz, Ken Aberle
Staff Present: Laurie Lago
This meeting of the LA Water Cooperative was called to order at 6:04pm by Don Wicks, Chair/President
Secretary’s Report – The minutes of the July 2021 meetings were presented in writing.
Motion to approve by Amber Morgan. Seconded by Tom Gunn. Voted & Passed
Treasurer’s Report – Presented in writing.
Motion to approve by Linda Fountain. Seconded by Amber Morgan. Voted & Passed
Operation Manager’s Reports – Business, Field, and Water Loss Reports presented in writing.
Motion to approve by Amber Morgan. Seconded by Linda Fountain. Voted & Passed
Field Report – Report presented in writing is below:
Withycombe Pump Station – One Pump is leaking at seals and one needs bearings replaced. We have scheduled repairs to be done by HPS.
LaSalle Pump Station – Check valve needs replaced – HPS managed to get it working for now but is scheduling replacement.
Cox Reservoir – transducer was having electrical issues which caused tank level to not transmit which in turn caused the whole ladder on Albertson to Rossman to go into alarm. Fix required an employee to be on site late into the evening to manually pump water up the Albertson side to get each tank to a level that would get customers through the night and early morning hours until we could get it fixed in the morning.
Dixon Mill Leak – on Wednesday (8/11) morning people woke up to no water on Dixon Mill. Mason walked the line and finally found the leak on the cross county line from LaSalle over to Dixon Mill. This line is in a hard to reach area surrounded by trees. We hired Stratus Corporation to assist and they could not get big equipment in there and the large amount of water caused a swampy situation which was causing the smaller equipment to get stuck. Due to the hard location and having to source the correct parts, water was not able to be restored until Thursday (8/12) in the late afternoon hours. Two customers at the top of Dixon Mill had only a trickle of water until Friday morning (8/13) due to the fact their properties require a pump to get enough pressure to service them and the pump was not working properly and HPS could not provide us service until Friday morning as they are short staffed as well.
Line Locate – Our 6” mainline that crosses the field off Laurelwood and Nelson Drive had to be verified as a house was being built very near where the maps said it is. When witching we were picking up way too many options and since we do not have tracer wire on most lines, we had to be certain where that line is located, so we hired Stratus to use their vac truck to get visual on that line to make sure our locates were accurate.
Flett Leak – 6” AC mainline on Flett Road cracked. Hired Stratus and flaggers to assist with the job. Customers were only out of water a short period and we were able to call customers affected prior to shut off.
Old Business
1.) 1” tap request – reviewed information
2.) Customer water usage limits and rate information – bring back next month for voting.
3.) Mainline Re-alignment in Rock Quarry – Demand letter reviewed.
Motion to Approve and send after typo on page 2 is corrected by Dave McAdams. Seconded By Linda Fountain. Voted & Passed
4.) Service Line – abandon and move – Customers lawyer and our lawyer in communication.
New Business
1.) Leak Credits
Motion to approve by Linda Fountain. Seconded by Amber Morgan. Voted & Passed.
Other Business
1.) Discussed current employee shortage and steps being taken to fill the openings. Offer has been made to a potential Field Manager.
Motion to adjourn by Don Wicks. Seconded by Linda Fountain. Voted & Passed.
Meeting Adjourned at 6:34pm
