ERMUSR MISC MEMO 04-17-2008,"~~i
Elk River -==
Municipal Utilities
13069 Orono Parkway • P.O. Box 430
Elk River, MN 55330-0430
April 9, 2008
To: Elk River Municipal Utilities Commission
Jerry Takle
John Dietz
Jerry Gumphrey
From: Bryan Adams
Subject: Miscellaneous Issues
Phone: 763.441.2020
Fax: 763.441.8099
F,nclosed is the packet for Thursday, April 17, 2008 commission meeting at 4:00 p.m.
Water aril e?.ectric usage to date remain well above last year at 13.2% and 10.5% respectively.
The construction of Well #9 has been completed. Pump house construction for this facility has
started but is a little behind schedule. On April 4, 2008 we completed a float down inspection of
the Gary Street v~ater tower in preparatiorL for preparing engineering drawings and specification
to paint this tower next spring. Afloat down inspection is placing a person in the water tower in
a raft and emptying the tower. This allows inspection of the. roof rafters and side walk for paint
failure.
l'1^.e 4`" Street water main project will start in a week and should take about a month. As you
may recall., the projects entails installing 12" HDFE water main from Ott' Street arxd Morton Ave.
on the south side of Hwy 10 going east under Hwy 10 and the railroad tracks to 4t" Street and
Jackson Ave.
The electric department continues the tree trimming efforts and replacing out cut-outs. We are
finding a surprising number of cut-outs that have failed. We are very fortunate to find and
replace then before more outages occur.
As you may recall, we are in the process of buying into the tru:lsmission system through
CMMPA. Elk River has an opportunity to register our transmission facilities with MISO and
receive a return on this investment. We have approximately $474,000 of transmission
investments which relates to an approximate $61,000 annual return. This is an unexpected and
pleasant surprise fiom our relationship with CMMPA.
MMUA's winter meeting was March 12-14, 2008. We had a good session with the legislative
leaders. Attached is MMUA's State Position Statements.
The Elk River business expo at the High School on Sunday,
April 6, 2008 was a success. We gave away approximately
400 low flow shower heads and many people enjoyed our
bicycle that generates electricity.
On a final note, attached are three articles for your review.
1) Drop in wind power leads to grid emergency in
Texas from March 17, 2008 edition of Public Power
Weekly.
2) Energy section of March 14, 2008 edition of
Kiplinger Letter addressing nuclear power.
3) Update on Federal issues from Mike Nolan, our
Washington D.C. lobbyist.