Thanks to a $100,000 grant from Iron Range Resources (IRR), some water mains in City of Grand Marais alleys will be replaced this fall. City Administrator Mike Roth believes at least some of the 4” mains, now considered undersized, may have been there since the 1930s.
Many of the city’s water mains are underneath the streets and are only replaced when sewer line replacement and street reconstruction can be done at the same time.
Water mains will be replaced in the north-south alley between 1st and 2nd avenues east and 3rd and 4th streets and in the north-south and east-west alleys between Highway 61 and 1st Street and 3rd and 5th avenues west.
Homeowners with properties adjacent to the alleys will not be assessed for the work. According to Roth, property owners are assessed when the streets are redone along with water and sewer lines.
This year’s IRR grant is to be used for water and sewer improvements. A $60,000 grant from the same fund last year helped pay for the major improvements at the tennis courts just west of Cook County High School.
Sewer plant
Public Utilities Commissioner Hal Greenwood reported at the August 18, 2010 Public Utilities Commission (PUC) meeting that he had received a call from a woman who expected the area around the city’s sewer plant to smell bad during Fisherman’s Picnic when town was full of people.
Greenwood said he stopped by the sewer plant five times during Fisherman’s Picnic weekend and detected no odors.
When asked what would cause the plant to smell bad, Water/Wastewater Superintendent Tom Nelson said, “This is a biological plant.” Odors can occur depending on the amount of oxygen available to the bugs that decompose sewer waste. Thewaste must be aerated for the bugs to stay alive and do their work. Higher water temperatures as well as the amount of oxygen the bugs consume at a particular time can affect the amount of oxygen in the mix.
Septic systems, on the other hand, are anaerobic – they break down waste without oxygen, Nelson said.
This summer, work has been done on the Duluth facility where solids are normally transported throughout the year, so the City of Grand Marais has been storing its solid waste onsite until the Duluth facility can once again accept the waste. The Grand Marais sewer plant has storage capacity for about six months of solid waste.
Some might wonder what kind of pay and benefits—besides room and board—the bugs receive for all their labor.
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