Notices will go out to water customers

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

Van Wert water customers can expect to see a “failure to monitor” notice about chlorine levels in future bills.

During Monday night’s meeting of Van Wert City Council, Safety-Service Director Jay Fleming offered an explanation and said it goes back to a failed circuit board.

“We monitor continuously for chlorine at the water treatment plant,” he said. “We’re required to monitor and we have eight apparatuses there at different places that we monitor chlorine residuals and it gets recorded on the computer every 15 minutes and then we report it to the EPA. Back in January, we found out the circuit board between the device that monitors it and sends a signal to the computer went bad, so we weren’t able to record it, even though we record it by hand. We do it in the lab every four hours to check the machines that run all day long.”

“The digital readout continually showed us what the chlorine residual was in the finished water but because we weren’t recording in the computer, we are now in a reporting violation with the Ohio EPA,” he added. “They consider it failure to monitor.”

He added the company that supplies the circuit board has one and they’re trying to get a technician here this Thursday.

“We’re not going to issue a notice until this thing is fixed and my favorite part of the whole thing is we have up to year to issue a notice,” he stated somewhat sarcastically. “My point is it’s so dangerous that we have to issue a notice to the public, this happened in January and February, but we don’t have to issue a notice until December.”

Fleming added there actually isn’t a danger and he said the mandated notices will likely go out in April.

He also gave a brief update on the Leeson Ave. reconstruction project and said the water and sanitary sewer bores until the railroad tracks are compete and he said to avoid the area if you don’t live there.

Several ordinances were approved during Monday’s meeting including:

• A zoning change for two parcels at N. Vine St. and E. Jackson St. from R-2 to I-1.
• An ordinance concering reverse angle parking on Jefferson St.
• A Community Reinvestment Area (CRA) agreements with Young’s Waste Service.
• Two CRA agreements with the Van Wert County Foundation for continued work in the downtown area.

Council members also appointed Steve Bailey to the airport authority board of trustees.

Mayor Ken Markward noted the March 4 special council meeting concerning a possible community pool will be live streamed and archived on the city’s website. Representatives from the architectural company Brandstetter Carroll Inc. will be at the meeting to discuss design options and how that affects the cost.

The next regular meeting of Van Wert City Council will be held at 6:30 p.m. Monday, March 11, in Council Chambers on the second floor of the Municipal Building, 515 E. Main St.