6.1d ERMUSR 02-12-2019 Elk River
Municipal Utilities UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING
TO: FROM:
ERMU Commission Mike Tietz—Technical Services Superintendent
MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER:
February 12, 2019 6.1d
SUBJECT:
Staff Update
ACTION REQUESTED:
None
DISCUSSION:
• In January, the locating department had a total of 114 locate tickets consisting of four
emergency tickets, 6 cancellations, 79 normal tickets and 8 updated tickets.This is a
16% decrease in volume of tickets from the previous month.
• Electrical Technicians continue with updating the power bill, substation checks,
disconnects, reconnects, dealing with customer meter and off-peak issues, as well as
installing new meters for commercial customers. Staff continues to infrared image the
Station #14 substation feeder circuits, looking for any potential equipment failures. On
January 30 Engines 1, 2, 3 &4 were run. Engine#3 was shut down shortly after startup
as there was an indication that it was experiencing an issue. We are investigating the
problem and plan on testing it before the next monthly run.
• The weekly meter reads continue to go well. Staff continues to audit meters for non-
compliance with our clearance standards as well as looking for tampering of equipment.
The weather this month has made these tasks a bit more challenging but staff continues
to perform their tasks safely and efficiently.
• Mapping department continues to enter GPS points and attribute points for all of our
systems assets within the ESRI ArcView GIS system. The locators continue to collect GPS
points and data to be entered into the GIS system. Also, one of them has been assisting
with entering data into the GIS system in an effort to get the current backlog reduced.
He will continue this effort until the construction season begins.
• The Engineer and Electrical Technicians attended a power quality class in White Bear
Lake on January 31.The class is provided free of charge by Power Monitors Inc. and
provides training on power quality applications, troubleshooting of power quality issues
and hands on help with PMI Hardware and Software products we currently use.They
have also started working on insulation resistance testing (megging) of the power plant
generators and will be working on taking web deflections on the generators in March.
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