The Reporter newspaper, Camdenton Missouri

The Reporter covers Miller, Morgan and Camden County in Central Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks and is published once per week on Wednesdays.

Published January 28, 2015

OB infrastructure repairs, upgrades addressed

By Jeff Thompson
OSAGE BEACH - Public Works Director Nick Edelman dominated the Board of Aldermen’s agenda last week with a myriad of infrastructure repair and upgrade requests.

Out of 17 separate new business agenda items, 13 fell under the Public Works Department’s purview, including a somewhat contentious request for repairs to Aver Road as well as upgrades to a wireless monitoring system.

According to Edelman, a construction company (that he did not name) damaged Aver Road while working on the Mace Road Sewer project in 2013.

“The contractor damaged Aver Road and has failed to perform this (repair) work after several conversations,” Edelman stated in a report to the board.

The original contractor’s bonding company was no help either, according to Edelman.

“The bonding company has refused to help contending the city has withheld enough from the contract to perform the repairs,” Edelman stated. “The road continues to deteriorate.”

He described what he considered to be the city’s responsibility.

“Our contractor has damaged the roadway,” Edelman said, “and Aver Road is a private road.”

Additionally, the public works director noted that his department will also be using Aver Road for access to monitor and repair sewer infrastructure which the city had taken over from Lake Ozark in 2013.

“We should repair this roadway so that the homeowners have the road in a similar condition prior to the sewer construction project,” Edelman said.

The board approved the apparent low bid of $39,156.80 from Strait-Line Construction for the Aver Road repairs.

Edelman stated that the city has withheld $11,642.24 from the original Mace Road project.

“We can utilize these funds for this project,” Edelman said. “The remaining $27,514.56 will be a budget amendment (which the board also approved).”

In addition, the board approved a Public Works request to expand and upgrade the city’s Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system used for remote monitoring and control of the city’s water and sewer systems.

Edelman explained the SCADA system process.

“It uses radio transmitters and receivers along with PLCs (Programmable Logic Controller) to send level data along various alarms to the Public Works Department,” he stated.

The new $217,732 contract with System Manufacturing will upgrade 26 lift station monitoring capabilities and add six additional lift stations to the current system, bringing the total number of SCADA stations to 47.

Alderman Kevin Rucker asked Edelman how many lift stations the city has in its inventory.

“We have 56 major lift stations,” Edelman said.

According to Edelman’s report, the board had approved contracts with System Manufacturing in April and September of 2014 to install a new wireless “backbone” at the Swiss Village and Bluff Drive water tower sites and 15 pump station sites.

He added that there will be additional pump stations added to the system in future budget years.