6.1d ERMUSR 09-10-2019 Elk River
Municipal Utilities UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING
TO: FROM:
ERMU Commission Mike Tietz—Technical Services Superintendent
MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER:
September 10, 2019 6.1d
SUBJECT:
Staff Update
ACTION REQUESTED:
None
DISCUSSION:
• In August, the locating department had a total of 452 locate tickets consisting of six
emergency tickets, seven cancellations, 398 normal tickets, and 41 updated tickets. This
is a 5% increase in the 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. Meters will
be arriving this week for Areas 7 & 8. Meter changeouts will be done on Sept. 17.
• On August 22, staff ran Engines 1, 3, and 4 without any issues. Engine 2 has not been
repaired yet as we are still working on getting quotes. We have only received one quote
so far.
• Weekly meter reads continue to go well. Staff continues to perform meter audits
around the system as time allows and has been discovering a number of vegetation
issues blocking access to the meters.These customers will be notified about correcting
the issues.
• Mapping department continues to update points and attributes for all of our systems
assets within the ESRI ArcView GIS system. We are meeting with Power Systems
Engineering (PSE) on Sept. 10 to develop a plan for our ESRI upgrade as well as a disaster
recovery backup plan for the GIS server.
• Engineering has been working on making improvements to our SCADA system along
with getting our substation backup meters back online.
• Survey stakes were placed on August 26 marking the location and elevation of the West
Substation Equipment Storage Garage.The permit was picked up on September 5 from
the city. City Building Official Bob Ruprecht allowed us to have the floor drain exit to
daylight rather than a holding tank. This will save us some costs on the excavating as
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well as the cost of the tank. I met with the excavator on Sept. 6. Structural Buildings has
ordered the building materials and is on the schedule to start construction of the
building towards the end of September.
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