Grand Marais Public Utilities Commission (PUC) Electrical Superintendent Mike Taylor said power outages were less in 2013 than in 2012. “With all of the extreme weather we have had, I’m pretty happy with the way the system held up,” Taylor said to the PUC board at its March 19, 2014 meeting.
Taylor presented a 2013 annual electrical utility report to the board.
There were three scheduled outages in 2013, one by Grand Marais PUC to repair equipment at a substation and two by Great River Energy.
Taylor said there were five outages caused by accidents: one was caused by a now deceased squirrel; one happened when a tree fell across a house; one insulator broke at a substation and two were caused by equipment operators who broke buried power lines.
Taylor said the Croftville project was completed in 2013 and improved the low voltage problems occurring there and improved the reliability of power to the area. “Three to four miles of lines were upgraded,” Taylor said.
The city’s two linemen, Jeff Eliasen and Matt Bronikowski, both received training in meter safety and phase II digger truck qualification during 2013.
The PUC will attempt to give customers plenty of notice if a planned service interruption is expected to last 20 minutes or longer. Planned service interruptions will again be scheduled to minimize the inconvenience to customers. Long-term investment in water plant
City Water & Sewer Administrator Tom Nelson said his crew has been busy unthawing frozen water and sewer lines, but he was pleased that more lines weren’t freezing considering the ongoing cold weather. He also said the water plant needed a new ultra transducer booster. “It’s 25 years old and drifts all over the place,” Nelson said.
The transducer records water depth and the water flow coming into the wastewater treatment plant, Nelson said.
The board approved the purchase of a replacement transducer at a cost of $4,900.
“Will we get 25 years out of the new one?” PUC Board Member Karl Hansen asked.
“More, probably. The new ones are made better and should last longer. They also require less work for the crew,” Nelson said. Late penalty forgiven for YMCA
Grand Marais City Administrator Mike Roth presented the board with a letter sent from the county asking the PUC to waive late fees totaling $710.63
Sent from Cook County Auditor – Treasurer Braidy Powers, the letter stated, “We were just notified by the Duluth YMCA that they have been receiving the bills for electric, water and sewer since September—and they haven’t been paying them. The total bill through December is $9,593.53, $710.63 of that are late penalties. Would the PUC consider waiving those penalties given the confusion over the bill? The county should have been billed during construction—and we would have paid them on time.”
Board member Tim Kennedy said that he could see no benefit in assessing the penalty and asked the board to forgive the bill. Roth also said that the Y has been experiencing much greater growth than expected and some confusion like this could be expected in its initial phase of business. After a short discussion the board passed a motion to forgive the penalty. Draft district heating plant contracts distributed
Kennedy, who is the city’s liaison to the Cook County Local Energy Project (CCLEP), said district heating contracts had been sent to potential customers for review.
The City of Grand Marais is exploring whether it is financially feasible to build and install a biomass heating plant that is estimated to cost $10 million to get up and running.
“We’re not expecting to hear from anyone until April,” he said.
In the case of the school and the hospital, any potential contract would have to be looked at by their lawyers before being approved, said Kennedy. He also said bids haven’t come back from contractors, so no one knows what the cost to install underground lines and build the heating plant will be at this time.
“Everything is contingent upon financing and what the bids for construction will be,” Kennedy said.
The PUC board will meet with the Grand Marais City Council on April 9 to discuss the biomass project. Hopefully, Kennedy said, more pieces of the puzzle will be known by then.
“I want the people to know that we are not to going to put the city taxpayer at risk for this project,” said Kennedy.
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