A water main break near the East Bay Suites had Grand Marais Public Utilities crews working overtime to get it fixed on November 4. Several pumps had to be used to keep the hole as water free as possible so the main could be repaired.
Tom Nelson, director of the Grand Marais Water and Sewer departments, reported his crews have been very busy over the last month making repairs to sewer/water lines before the snow flies.
Nelson gave his report on November 4, and as he spoke his crew was busy fixing a break to a water main near East Bay Suites.
Nelson said lines had been dug up and insulation had been put around pipes near the Cook County Co-Op and on East 5th street near the Evangelical Free Church and on the second block of 7th Avenue.
The big sewer pipe leak in a line outside of Sivertson’s Art Gallery took several days to repair, but the work is now done, said Nelson, but the city might be held liable in this case.
“In 2003 when the work was done the contractor never hooked up the new sewer line to Sivertson’s,” Nelson said.
“Where did the sewage go?” board member Tim Kennedy asked.
“Into the pipe. The 10-inch sewer main acted like a sewer drain. Basically, the sewage was going into the ground,” he said.
Nelson said Sivertson’s had been having trouble the last three years and paying to have the problem fixed, to no avail. “Now we will get those bills,” he said.
When asked if the city could legally go after the contractor who first did the work, Nelson said the contractor was no longer in business. He also said the inspector should have caught the mistake, but he didn’t think the city would have much luck getting paid from the company representing the inspector.
“We can check to see if our insurance company will pay for this. It’s worth looking into anyway,” he said.
Bottom line, said board member George Wilkes, the problem is fixed and the sewer is hooked up properly and Sivertson’s shouldn’t have any more trouble with it.
Last but not least, Nelson said his crews were repairing a break to a water main next to East Bay. Because of its proximity to Lake Superior and the high lake levels, the hole that was dug had to have several pumps in it pushing water out of the hole to make the repair possible. The leak, said Nelson, had probably been going on for a long time. He said that as much as 15 to 18 million gallons of water had leaked from this water main over the last summer.
Kennedy asked, again, if the contractor who installed the water main had performed the work properly. Nelson said the work could have been done better, but the city wouldn’t be able to prove any negligence in the job.
Jan Smith, the city’s PUC clerk, asked the board to write off about $10,000 in bad debt. One person who had declared bankruptcy owed much of that sum and the business was now in the hands of a bank.
“If we write it off, does that mean we will never get paid by these people?” Kennedy asked.
“No. We have done this in the past and we have been paid as much as four years later. I still have copies of the bills. You might be surprised; people will come back and pay when they can. They know they still owe the debt,” she said.
Wilkes motioned and Kennedy seconded with board chair Karl Hansen voting to write off the bad debt for 2015.
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