The Meridian City Council is considering changes to its ordinances governing water and sewer to beef up penalties for those who violate the rules.

In a work session Tuesday, City Attorney Will Simmons said he had been working with Waggoner Engineering, Neel-Schaffer and Kimley-Horn, which all are assisting the city in managing its federal consent decree to stop sanitary sewer overflows.

Neel-Schaffer’s Phillip Gibson said his firm is working with the city to implement nine Capacity, Management, Operations and Maintenance programs, which are required under the terms of the consent decree. The programs, which include things like preventative maintenance scheduling, emergency response plans and a Fats, Oils and Grease program, more commonly referred to as FOG, are intended to give city employees the training and expertise needed to maintain the wastewater system after the consent decree ends.

Gibson told council members the CMOM programs can be considered a set of blueprints that current and future city employees are to follow.

On the legal side, Simmons said, the council needs to update its ordinances to designate enforcement and define penalties for those who use the city’s wastewater system inappropriately. The FOG ordinance, for example, outlines the duties of a FOG coordinator, who is tasked with inspecting restaurants and businesses to make sure grease traps are properly installed and are in working order.

Under the changes, Simmons said, the FOG coordinator will have the power to penalize those who aren’t following the rules.

“He is basically going to have the ability to warn them, fine them and shut them down,” Simmons said.

In addition to the ordinance changes, the council is being asked to authorize an additional $100,000 for Neel-Schaffer to continue training and implementation of the CMOM programs at Meridian Public Works. The funds will be part of the city’s contract with the engineering firm, which caps spending at $2.5 million.

Manholes

Waggoner Engineering’s David Ruhl said another issue needing to be addressed is the misuse of manholes. The city, he said, has seen a trend in which the homeless will remove manhole covers, mostly along the Highway 80 trunk line, and either hang out inside the sewer or throw old clothes, sleeping bags and other garbage down into the sewer.

Clearing the debris out of the sewer line, Ruhl said, is expensive and time consuming. On the positive side, he said, since the city has cleaned out the Highway 80 trunk line, there haven’t been any sanitary sewer overflows along that line.

Councilman George Thomas said some of the manhole covers themselves are quite valuable having been manufactured in the foundry at Soule Steam Works in the early 1900s.

Waggoner, in cooperation with Meridian Public Works and the other consent decree partners, is looking into options to secure the manhole covers in place, Ruhl said. There are several products already on the market that can be used to lock the covers, notify the city if the covers are removed or a combination of the two.

New Pump Station

Also under the consent decree, the council is considering approving a third task order at a cost of $489,411.60 under the city’s three-year, $3 million contract with Kimley-Horn to design and oversee the construction of a new pump station.

Ruhl said the project would redirect wastewater running under Sowashee Creek to the city’s east wastewater treatment plant, with any overflow being sent to the city’s south wastewater treatment plant. The east plant, he said, is currently being underutilized, with only about 300,000 gallons of wastewater being treated each day even though the plant is capable of treating 1.5 million gallons.

“This is a very important project as part of the consent decree,” he said.

The installation of the new pump station would also eliminate the need for an emergency bypass put in place in January after city officials learned a pipe carrying wastewater under the creek was leaking raw sewage into the water.

Once the project is designed, it will come back to the council to be put out for bids. Ruhl said the pump station is estimated to cost between $6.2 million and $7 million.