| Price River Water Improvement District board member Guido Rachiele administers the oath of office to Tom Matthews during PRWID’s regular public meeting on Jan. 6. Voters residing in unincorporated areas of Carbon County elected the former commissioner to serve on the water improvement district board. |
The Price River Water Improvement District held their first meeting of the year last Tuesday, and swearing in the new member of the board was the first thing on the agenda.
Elected to the PRWID board last fall, former county commission Tom Matthews took the oath of office last Tuesday. The board also reorganized the panel’s hierarchy and assignments.
For the next year, Keith Cox of Spring Glen will serve as the chair of the board while Wellington Mayor Karl Housekeeper will serve as vice-chair.
The PRWID chairman assigned duties for different departments to the various board members.
Helper Councilman Tony Gonzales will oversee water treatment. Price Councilwoman Betty Wheeler will work with construction and maintenance, while Matthews will take care of the wastewater plant. Houskeeper will oversee the district’s fleet and Cox will handle the administration.
Following the board assignments, the PRWID staff presented reports regarding the status of the water improvement district’s ongoing projects.
The first report concerned the Carbonville-Wellington water project, slated to begin construction soon.
“We did the bond closing on Dec. 30 and everything went well,” pointed out district manager Phil Palmer. “Since out last board meeting we also have determined that the contractor that we selected for the project is qualified.”
TNT Construction will be the contractor for the project, which will upgrade the lines in five small independent water companies to meet state standards.
Once the project is completed, the companies will be dissolved and become part of PRWID.
The $1.3 million in bonds will be paid back during a 25-year period by consumers connected to the systems that will be improved.
It will cost current residential customers and new hookups $20 per month in addition to regular water usage charges. The payments will be used to shorten the time of payback.
The district is constrained by time frames as to when construction can be done in certain areas.
“Carbon County doesn’t want us tearing up roads in any of the areas until March,” Palmer explained. “So construction in those places will have to wait. But we also have some areas that are not on roads that must be done by March 15.”
The permits for working around and going under the railroad tracks in Carbonville have been obtained, added Palmer.
The water improvement district staff also briefed the board members on the sewer projects that have been going on since last summer as well.
“Most of it is all but complete,” Palmer stated. “We have only a few hundred feet of pipe to lay on the Highway 10 project and then it will be done.”
Palmer also told the board that during a staff inspection of the work they had rejected about 40 feet of the line that Claw Construction installed near Gardner Lane in Carbonville because the slope of the pipe was incorrect.
“They will be digging that area up and be fixing it so if you see them working in that area you know what is going on,” he explained to the board.
One of the major issues left regarding the sewer project involves the road areas that are still not repaired and Palmer addressed that matter as well.
“In Carbonville where we had the mud problems and lost the entire road, we had intended to put down roto mill until we had to tear it up again for the new water line this spring,” noted Palmer.
“Unfortunately the bad weather moved in before we could do that,” added the PRWID manager. “So we will be maintaining that road with gravel for the winter and then will install the water line this spring. After that full repairs will be done to the road.”
He also said that the budget on the project will probably come out a little in the red because of the extra costs the mud in that area created.
One thing some people in that neighborhood have been concerned about is that the mud will also cause problems with the new water line installation as it did with the sewer lines, but PRWID assistant manager Jeff Richens had an answer.
“The sewer line was being run eight feet below the ground and we hit the mud at about six feet,” he stated. “The water lines will be installed at about a depth of four feet so there should be no problem with it on that project.”
After the discussion about wrapping up the sewer project, the PRWID board agreed to pay Claw Construction for a change order which they billed at $13,988.79.
The payment was for the extra truck time for the hauling off of mud, the relocation of an irrigation line that had not been included in the bid and the import of cobble rock for some trenches.
The PRWID board also approved paying Claw Construction $129,417.11.
The money in question will cover the construction com-pany’s work activity through Dec. 31 and completes the water district’s payment on about 97 percent of the total contract.
In addition, the water improvement district board members heard about the status of the corrosion control project planned on the Four Mile Hill and Kenilworth water tanks.
PRWID staff had scheduled a walk through at the sites with potential contractors on Jan. 12.
The bid opening on the Four Mile Hill and Kenilworth water tank improvement project will take place on Jan. 20.
The staff is also working on temporary storage tanks for the Kenilworth site while the project is being done.
“It’s been hard to find tanks we can rent within the state,” said Richens. “In fact right now, we are finding it cheaper to buy them than to rent them.”
The Kenilworth project will require the extra equipment to supply the town while the tank is down.
The Four Mile Hill tank customers can have water rerouted through a different part of the system during the project.
In addition, Richens presented the water improvement district board members with the data from the latest Snotel report on the Price River drainage.
The Mammoth-Cottonwood area of the drainage showed that the location has received 9.9 inches of water in the snow pack. The most recent measure exceeds the average of 8.5 inches for the present time of year.
The White River drainage showed a total of 6.8 inches of water as compared to the average of 5.7 inches.
However, a second unrelated report regarding the local water situation showed that Scofield Reservoir is down from the levels registered at last year at the same time.
In addition, the second report indicated that Scofield is significantly lower than the reservoir would be on average this time of year.
“It think those figures are incorrect,” pointed out Palmer, indicating that he was at the reservoir a few days ago. “It looks much higher than that. But regardless, most of the storage comes into the reservoir in the spring. That’s when we will know where we are at.”