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Utilities director reports transformer installs, Richmond Street garage fire that cut power to about a dozen homes, and SCADA/dialer fixes
Summary
The utilities director described recent electric upgrades (including a 150 kVA transformer for Zion Lutheran High School), a Richmond Street garage fire that required cutting power to roughly 12 homes while crews worked, SCADA/dialer repairs that restored remote monitoring, and ongoing wastewater valve replacements carried out in-house.
The utilities director reported on recent department work across electric, water and wastewater operations, highlighting a transformer installation for a Zion Lutheran High School expansion and a February garage fire on Richmond Street that briefly cut power to about 12 homes while crews made lines safe.
Director’s electric update: staff installed a pad-mounted 150 kVA transformer and a new three-phase service tied to a school expansion and performed CT installs at Cardinal Heights apartments; photos were shown of pad-mount and CT work, and staff noted frost delayed some trenching.
Garage fire and response: the director described video captured by resident Jake Bonas showing a transformer-related spark and a garage fire; Columbus firefighters, aided by Fall River, suppressed the blaze. The director said crews separated burning lines and cut power to roughly 12 homes to work safely on the downed lines.
Water and SCADA: the director outlined a recurring dialer/SCADA problem that required a hardware adapter (described in the meeting as a small ‘black box’ device) to allow newer dialer technology to communicate with legacy landline-based systems; staff said the box resolved remote-call failures and reduced unnecessary site visits. The director also described routine chemical-treatment pump refurbishments and annual tubing/diaphragm replacements in a regulated water-treatment process.
Wastewater maintenance and field repairs: staff described in-plant valve and actuator replacements in the raw-sewage building — work the crew performed in-house and said saved contractor costs — and a field lateral repair at Birdsey and Fountain where mismatched cast-iron and PVC pipes caused backups and required Fernco coupling to correct.
Project timing: the director said a Heritage Way preconstruction meeting is scheduled for the coming Monday and that construction is expected to start in early April; he said the project schedule itself was not provided to the commission at the briefing.
Speakers quoted or paraphrased in this article: Director (speaker 4).
