Now that their sewage treatment plant is finally under construction, Annandale and Maple Lake are thinking about who’s going to operate it. City representatives on the Annandale-Maple Lake Wastewater Commission discussed the question in a meeting Tuesday, Sept. 25, in the Annandale City Hall. After nearly five years of opposition and legal action, work on the $12.7 million plant has been underway since mid-August in Albion Township southeast of Annandale. It’s expected to be on stream in early 2009. Project manager Brad DeWolf told the commission that plant contractors Di-Mar Construction and ABE Construction have started pouring the concrete bio-solids tank. Once that’s finished, construction will start on the control building with the aim of enclosing it by mid-December so work can continue inside throughout the winter. Kuechle Underground planned to start this week installing about 13 miles of forcemain from the cities to the plant and from the plant to the North Fork of the Crow River. Kuechle is expected to work until about mid-December and resume in the spring. "So the projects are going well," DeWolf said. Commission secretary Mark Casey said the commission has three options for operating the plant: It can hire an outside service like U.S. Filter to run it, let one of the cities handle the job or hire an employee. It would be appropriate to first give the cities the opportunity to submit proposals before hiring anyone else, Casey said. Annandale Mayor Marian "Sam" Harmoning said hiring an employee wasn’t a realistic option, and bringing in a third-party contractor to run it would be more expensive. DeWolf said the Montrose-Waverly plant is operated by Montrose city staff and the facility works well. On average, the operator job is probably a half-time position, he said. Annandale public works director Joe Haller said the task requires a Class B licensed operator plus two or three qualified people to back up the operator when he or she can’t be there. The commission accepted Harmoning’s suggestion that the cities consider until the next meeting – 5 p.m Monday, Oct. 29, in the Maple Lake City Hall – whether they want to submit a proposal. Maple Lake Mayor Mike Messina asked for more information before making a decision because he and the other commissioners don’t know what’s involved in running a treatment plant. DeWolf said he would provide the information. The plant will be technologically sophisticated, Messina said later, and it might take as much knowledge of computers as plant mechanics to operate it. "It’d be a real sweet deal" if one of the cities had a person who could run the plant, he said. The commission also: – Approved splitting the job of commission secretary and treasurer and appointing an Annandale employee to the job. Julie Weiers will fill the position. – Approved making an initial payment of $188,188 to Di-Mar and ABE. – Adopted a uniform sewer access charge policy for collection of connection fees by both cities. DeWolf recommended the policy "so that everybody is charged on the same basis." Annandale has been using the policy, he said, and it’s similar to what Maple Lake has been doing, though it has no formal document.
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