Laserfiche WebLink
What we are doing right now is less engineering on trying to solve the water quality issue but <br />trying to come up with an aggressive plan to make sure this amount of money does not have to <br />be spent. <br />Mr. Fahey detailed what that $148 million spent did for the City. That money reduced our <br />overflow by approximately eighty percent (80 %). In 2008 South Bend's annual combined <br />sewage overflow was 2,054 million gallons. By 2015, that figure was down to 399 million <br />gallons. We have had such huge success getting that number down, that is the motivation to think <br />there is a smarter way to get it to the lowest dollar amount possible. , <br />Phase Two (2) involves nine (9) pieces of major infrastructure. Those include seven (7) large <br />storage tanks, an underground storage conduit, and a new storage and conveyance interceptor. <br />We have achieved such great success at a fraction of the cost, so we don't believe that the current <br />Phase Two (2) is the best option. Mr. Fahey provided a map of where the points the City <br />overflows into the river are. The map is on file with the City Clerk's Office. When the agreement <br />was first made it was estimated that it could be done for $500 million but since then things have <br />changed for a number of reasons. First of all inflation, when the agreement was initially made <br />they were using 2007 dollars. Second, at that time there was a less competitive construction <br />industry and now there is a much more competitive environment. <br />Mr. Fahey detailed the problems with the current plan. The plan is too expensive with high <br />capital and operating costs. It is also inflexible and cannot be adapted to react to our successes. <br />The big thing we would like to change in a new plan is to make it more adaptive. The current <br />plan is also very disruptive to the public parks which is something we would of course like to <br />avoid. These problems have given us the motivation to come up with this relook. <br />The relook started in 2015 and will be completed at an interim level by December of this year. <br />We have aggressively reengineered the solution and arrived at three (3) alternatives. Each of-the <br />alternatives involves green infrastructure. We are proposing to do a different configuration of <br />tanks. Obviously if you can do one (1) large tank instead of two (2) smaller tanks you can save a <br />lot of money. One (1) of the alternatives plans is for a full deep rock tunnel while another calls <br />for a half deep rock tunnel. These plans can save approximately $100 to $300 million depending <br />on which one is chosen. Each plan includes a large contingency where we could possibly achieve <br />greater savings. <br />As of last week, the City made contact with IDEM and requested a meeting for later in 2016 to <br />discuss findings. That's the kick -off of the regulatory renegotiation process. We are not just <br />looking at three (3) alternatives to say how good they could be in terms of complying with the <br />EPA wants us to do. We are also going to say what if we don't comply with exactly what they <br />wanted to do and that could save money as well. <br />Mr. Fahey presented a slide detailing the financial impact of the current Phase Two (2) plan. The <br />South Bend's residential indicator is three point seven percent (3.7 %), meaning the cost of <br />implementing this current plan is three point seven percent (3.7 %) of the median household <br />income for everybody. Twenty percent (20 %) of South Bend households would pay ten percent <br />(10 %) of their income on Clean Water Act compliance in the current plan. Greater than fifty <br />2 <br />