6.1d ERMUSR 02-13-2018 Elk River
Municipal Utilities UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING
TO: FROM:
ERMU Commission Mike Tietz—Technical Services Superintendent
MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER:
February 13th, 2018 6.1d
SUBJECT:
Staff Update
ACTION REQUESTED:
None
DISCUSSION:
• In January,the Locating department had a total of 103 locate tickets consisting of six
emergency tickets, 3 cancellations, 5 meetings, 67 normal tickets and 18 updated tickets.
This is a 4% increase in volume of tickets from the previous month. The locators are
continuing to gather GPS points, averaging about 50 data points per day.
• Electric Technicians continue with updating power bill, substation checks, disconnects,
reconnects, dealing with meter and off-peak issues, as well as installing new meters for
commercial customers. Staff completed the reprogramming of all non-demand meters
within their appropriate billing cycles.
• The weekly meter reads have been going very well according to staff. We have
implemented a backup computer into a rotation schedule as well as cross-training staff to
have a redundancy in the reading process. Staff continues to perform meter audits around
the system as time allows.
• On January 17, the power plant staff worked with Princeton Public Utilities staff to
resolve our issue with engine#4. Staff performed the monthly run on January 30. All
engines ran well, however we developed a coupling leak on engine#1's fuel rail. We will
replace the coupling gaskets on engines 1 & 2 proactively. Also during the run, it was
discovered that we had developed a leak in one of the oil cooling pipes for engine#4.
Staff welded a patch onto it to seal it up.
• Mapping department continues to enter GPS points and attribute points for all of our
systems assets within the ESRI ArcView GIS system. Electronic CAD maps continue to
be updated as well as the 2018 paper map books have been printed for field staff use. The
budgeted ArcGIS Server software has been quoted from ESRI and we are looking to have
it in production by the end of 1St quarter.
• An order has been placed for the replacement locator pickup truck. This budgeted vehicle
was ordered from Midway Ford as they had quoted the lowest State Contract price.
Cornerstone Automotive also submitted a quote, but was substantially higher.
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