6.1d ERMUSR 09-11-2018 i
Elk River
Municipal Utilities UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING
TO: FROM:
ERMU Commission Mike Tietz—Technical Services Superintendent
MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER:
September 11, 2018 6.1d
SUBJECT:
Staff Update
ACTION REQUESTED:
None
DISCUSSION:
• In August, the locating department had a total of 580 locate tickets consisting of eight
emergency tickets, 11 cancellations, 12 meetings, 454 normal tickets and 84 updated
tickets. This is a 6% increase in volume of tickets from the previous month.
• Electric Technicians continue with updating the power bill, substation checks,
disconnects,reconnects, dealing with meter and off-peak issues, as well as installing new
meters for commercial customers. Staff has been working with Minnesota Municipal
Power Agency (MMPA) on the metering and communications at each of the substations
in preparation for the wholesale power provider change. Staff has also been working on
programming equipment in preparation for the transfer of Areas 5&6.
• The weekly meter reads continue to go well. Meter audits of the system have been
completed for the initial assessment. Staff has started revisiting accounts that were
notified of not being in compliance with our standards to follow-up on their progress.
• On August 30 staff ran Engines 1, 2 & 3. Engine #4 was not run. Staff noticed water
leaking from one of the raw water pumps while they were running. The pumps are used
to cool the oil system utilizing lake water. We will monitor for now and plan to do
maintenance repairs over the winter months. Staff has also been performing maintenance
and inspections of the bulk fuel tanks and getting estimates from vendors to update them
in the future.
• Mapping department continues to enter GPS points and attribute points for all of our
systems assets within the ESRI ArcView GIS system. Staff has been updating maps in
preparation for the Connexus transfer as well as updating the CAD maps used by field
staff. Gopher State One Call has also been updated with the service territory changes.
• Interviews for the System Engineer position are scheduled for September 7 and 10.
• The opening for the Operational Technology Superintendent position was posted on
August 30 with a closing date of September 28.
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