09-26-16 Utilities - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mr. Horvath stated the thing that is most important is that we get the data right. We cannot go make an argument unless we know with some certainty that what we are going to build is going to do what we are going to say. In our previous plan, we now know it was flawed because it we had an eight (8) million gallon tank that only needed to be $3.5 million gallons. We would have spent millions and millions of dollars more by building a tank much larger than it needed to be. We know that because we have real data to tell us that. We had to go back and redo the model and now we are going to have to prove that to them with these new numbers. They are still going to argue for the old numbers. There does need to be some urgency here and the department wants nothing more than to be at that answer because it will take some time with the EPA and DOJ. Committee Chair Dr. Varner stated if anyone from the public wishes to speak they can do so now. Richard Pfeil, Office in Downtown South Bend, stated he got involved with this issue because it's the only billion dollar problem he's got. It is a billion because these numbers shown are without any interest in financing. The other thing which is obvious is that the Public Works Department is working very hard on this issue and are very sincere about it. He stated he is proud of the work the engineers are doing and he has no problem with the work they are doing. The hard work though has yet to show that we can take $100 million off of this. The big issue we have is our large surface area with the river, much larger than Mishawaka. The surface area is a bigger deal than the number of people in the City. That is why we found out it will cost about twice the average per person of what other communities will pay. The EPA lets you take longer but if you take longer it will eventually cost more. We are basically discussing whether we get a chance to run this City or whether people from Washington are going to run the City. That is at the bottom of all of this plus all the good engineering the City has been doing. We are going to end up with a fight about who runs South Bend. Mr. Pfeil asked is it the people of South Bend or a bunch of people who don't live here and have a fixed opinion that we have to go down to four (4) overflows no matter what it costs us and that we also have to treat every overflow. We are the only, people on the St. Joseph River that have to also treat all the overflows which adds a huge amount of money. This is the biggest threat to the future of South Bend since Studebaker left. We should not let anyone say this is not a big deal because it is the only billion dollar problem the Council has. Mr. Pfeil continued by stating the political side of this is wild because we are talking about people's restrooms. We are not talking about abstract issues we are talking about people flushing their toilet. That then brings in Notre Dame, Saint Mary's and Holy Cross who all use our sewer system. This affects what happens when we have a stadium full of people on Saturdays. A lot of people have to do a lot hard work and people in Public Works are doing an awfully good job of trying to work this out and try to come out with an engineering answer. He stated he believes engineering will get us part way there because every $100 million is a huge deal but this thing is going to get much bigger than what we can engineer ourselves out of and that's why we have to figure out what we are going to do. Paul Kemp, 204 Peashway South Bend, stated he does work at Notre Dame and wants to echo Mr. Pfeil's comments. He stated it has been a much more open process than last time. Notre 3