During last Monday’s City of Greenville Public Works Committee meeting, engineer Darrel Martinek along with project manager Brad Jones, provided an update on the status of current projects aimed to further address infrastructural needs.
Martinek said regarding an ongoing pump station improvement project, “The issue the contractor has run into is the delivery of materials.”
He recommended the authorization of a stop work order for 90 days once pump submittals have been approved, allowing additional time for all of the necessary materials to come in.
“There wouldn’t be any change in cost, but we’d go through a change order for time to justify that to MDEQ (Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality),” Martinek said.
The public works committee voted unanimously to follow Martinek’s recommendation.
Jones has been spearheading a project to locate missing water meters.
He provided each committee member with a spreadsheet indicating the different cycles and the water meters that fall exclusively within that cycle.
Directing committee members’ attention to the first cycle, he told them in reference to Cycle 1, formerly Cycle 10, his team discovered 350 meters that were not in the billing database.
“We found out in the field, then we went back to look at those properties to see if there was a structure on the property, if the structure appeared to be occupied and then if there’s a power meter or electric meter on the property to give you as much data as possible on the locations,” he said.
Jones used the color red to indicate on the spreadsheet which meters he believes are located on active properties or properties where someone currently resides.
“And out of the 350 in that first cycle, we show 180 that are actually not being billed. None of these are getting a bill, but the 180 appear to be occupied or occupied business,” he pointed out.
The second cycle Jones referred to had a total of 319 water meters that did not appear to be in the billing database.
Out of those, he said 186 appeared to be occupied businesses or dwellings.
“Also, in cycle 20, there are 404 meters registered where the dials need to be replaced and there are 254 meters in that cycle that we haven’t found yet,” Jones said. “We’ve been out there and we’ve looked but it’s usually a vacant house or abandoned house.”
He added in some instances, there may be a need to do some digging and utilize metal detectors to locate the meters.
Jones also noted they’ve been working with Entergy and Twin County to the end of retrieving data on the power meters.
Councilman James Wilson they’ll have to be sure to tighten the belt moving forward when it comes to demolition and make sure meters are pulled before the process begins.
In addition, Jones highlighted they are still looking at the lead service lines in the system, which will help to get the city ahead of the game when it comes to compliance with the Lead and Copper Rule.
Councilman Al Brock said considering the various issues with the water meters, his recommendation would be to provide the water department with the data so that it can address those meters not in the billing database.
