Linn Sanitary District Business Meeting

April 9, 2008

Present: Ted Peters, Tess Adams, Jim Livingston, Richard Scholze, and Karen Nordsieck.

  1. Ted Peters called the meeting to order at 7:00PM.
  2. Public Comments- Fred Dolittle, from Cisco Beach; Ken Struck from Linton Rd. and Stan Fairchild from Maple Hills were present. Mr. Struck spoke about being in favor of a total lake sewer system not just Cisco Beach and other areas where they are needed.
  3. Motion to accept March 12th Treasurers Report J. Livingston/T. Adams CU
  4. Motion to accept March 12 th Meeting Minutes J. Livingston/ T. Adams CU
  5. Old Business
    1. J. Livingston will attend the next Lake Geneva Utility Commission meeting the end of April presenting Linn Sanitary District’s position regarding the North Shore Facilities Planning project
    2. The Woods School meeting was attended by mostly people who were against the project due to the high cost. Ted had contacted the county to find out how many of the illegal system owners had received a permit to upgrade their system and found out it was just 2%.
  6. A Cesspool is defined as a leaking first tank and illegal.

    A dry well is a type of soil absorption system . Usually there is a septic tank followed by dry well which disperses the effluent to the soil. A dry well is legal SAS, but are not often used anymore.

    There is no county rule to inspect newly sold properties septic system as there was in the past. The counties maintenance program is the only way to monitor these systems.

    T. Peters spoke regarding refining the North Shore proposed Planning Area and is not sure if Linn Sanitary District should go ahead with the project. More information is needed before a decision can be made. A decision is needed by the Cisco Beach Board before proceeding. There were 19 illegal systems out of 84 in Cisco Beach. J. Livingston stated the mailing should be used to tell the commissioners if the property owners want the project to proceed. T. Peters wants the consensus of the subdivision Boards to continue with the Facilities Planning. T. Peters stated that the District will only sewer areas where there is a clear need. He also discussed how refining the Facilities Planning area on the North Shore may make the project cost prohibitive. J. Livingston brought up the County’s maintenance program which will help identify the unknown systems which were not found. The property owners will have to upgrade their systems to comply with the County standards.

    c. Update on the Fontana Walworth Water Pollution Control Commission. T. Peters went to their meeting on April 8 th and came out of it very discouraged. Ted passed out the new cost analysis he was given at the meeting. T. Peters asked a Fontana representative if he could get a decision out of Fontana by the next meeting on whether Fontana will allow Linn Sanitary District into the Treatment Plant. The FWPCC has four commissioners from Fontana and four from Walworth so if the Fontana commissioners all vote no there is no tie break. The vote would be no and we would not be allowed to come into the Fontana Walworth Processing Plant. Could Walworth sell us service on their own? They will check into it. Fontana did say they would supply sewer service to all in the sewer service area but they did not say how.

    T. Peters explained how the Kikkoman Plant has put in an equalization ditch so their demand for capacity has been decreased.

    The processing plant no longer plans to expand the way they once did so they are only planning a plant improvement with capital costs of about 4 million dollars.

    T. Peters went through the cost analysis report he was given at the FWWPCC meeting with the commissioners. The Linn Sanitary District would pay $900,000.00 of the $4,000,000.00 to build in what we would need to treat the volumes we would be sending based on the capacity we told them. This is just plant charges, which turns out to be ¼ of the total plant expansion cost with our volume only being just 6% of their total volume. The lines going to the plant would be an added expense. The report also stated we would have to reimburse them a percentage for the initial cost of building the existing plant, (recover of capital costs), which was $23,000,000. They figured Linn Sanitary District’s percentage value is 6.6% which equals 1.5 million dollars we would have to pay to use their existing plant. Discussion continued regarding the increased cost. Further study is needed.

    J. Livingston spoke regarding summer residents who could not afford paying for sewers.

    d. Motion to table WOWRA Conference T. Peters/J. Livingston CU

    e. Papers were presented for T. Peters to sign for the Credit Card, and Online Banking.

  1. New Business
    1. Discussion and action on bills.

Motion to pay bills as presented T. Peters/J. Livingston

    1. Karen will cross check illegal system owners data base with the county list. The letter to illegal system owners will be written soon.
    2. Jim will send the County a list of the tax key numbers who need to be sent a letter for maintaining their Functioning, Repairable, and Unknown septic systems. A cover letter will be included. The systems that are prior to 1985 that Linn Sanitary District inspected are the ones that the county does not have on their list.
    3. The meeting and survey for the South Shore will be discussed at future meetings after more information is gathered.
  1. None at this time.
  2. Illegal System letter, WOWRA conference, FWWPCC etc.
  3. Next meeting May 14th.

Motion to Adjourn T. Peters/J. Livingston CU