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Public Works lays out 6-year plan; aging treatment-plant equipment, generator failure and stormwater compliance flagged
Summary
Public Works Director Jay Herrst told council the department is shifting to proactive maintenance, replacing aging treatment-plant and generator systems, and planning smoke testing and basin projects to address stormwater-sewer cross-connections.
Public Works Director Jay Herrst presented the department’s updated six‑year work plan and described recent infrastructure incidents and near-term projects that will shape capital spending in 2025–2026.
Herrst said the department is shifting toward proactive maintenance to reduce repeat repairs and extended outages. “We want to go for reactive or proactive maintenance. Do it once doing right is what we say,” he told the council.
Treatment-plant incident and equipment risk
Herrst described a winter storm and power-outage incident in which a generator transfer switch did not properly transfer loads; staff manually operated controls and limited the effect, but “there's about a half hour of treated water that was undistinfected that went into Oakland Bay,” he said. Herrst said the department is obtaining replacement parts and will evaluate upgrading the transfer switch and generators to reduce the risk of recurrence.
Why it matters: the event led to a short discharge of under‑disinfected effluent; Herrst said Ecology did not cite the city but the incident illustrates the need to budget for generator and critical-asset replacement and to strengthen contingency plans.
Other priorities
- Asset management and EAM/GIS: Herrst said the department is building an enterprise asset-management (EAM) system tied to GIS and is completing field surveying associated with the AMI (advanced metering infrastructure) project.
- Smoke testing and basin projects: Herrst said smoke-testing of basins to find stormwater-to-sewer cross‑connections is planned for 2026, starting in Basin 6, with larger basins (4 and 5) on subsequent schedules. The department will use basin projects to combine repairs and testing.
- Emergency water-response trailer and fuel planning: the city budgeted for an emergency water-filtration trailer and has an emergency fuel plan and movable tanks for generator fueling during outages.
- Stormwater permit compliance: Herrst said the Phase II stormwater permit brings rising requirements; the department is monitoring private stormwater facilities and plans staffing increases tied to stormwater inspections.
What council asked: Council members asked about timelines for basin projects and smoke testing; Herrst said some projects are grant‑eligible but require local match funding, and that he has those items on the six‑year CIP.
Next steps: Herrst will pursue replacement parts for critical generator systems, continue AMI and EAM implementations, advertise for an additional stormwater FTE and seek grant funding for basin projects and sewer separation work.
