From the Cleveland Daily Banner: While Cleveland Utilities continues to tackle the problem of the taste and odor of its water, it is making moves
From the Cleveland Daily Banner: While Cleveland Utilities continues to tackle the problem of the taste and odor of its water, it is making moves to begin providing broadband internet.
At its Friday, July 28, board meeting, Tim Henderson, president and CEO of CU, updated board members on the utility provider’s ongoing work to improve the taste and odor of water from the Hiwassee River as well as its progress in becoming an energy authority.
Water taste/odor
“Thankfully, things are looking much better,” Henderson told the board in his report.
In late April, reports of customers’ water having a foul odor and taste were first made, with CU saying on April 28, “Per the regulatory testing that is conducted daily on our system, the water meets all standards of public drinking water.”
Algae blooms were identified in the Hiwassee, and the Tennessee Valley Authority increased the flow of water in an effort to move the blooms and prevent further growth in stagnant waters.
On a graph from July 12 shown to the CU Board, the level of geosmin and methylisoborneol (MIB) — which are the naturally occurring compounds which have created the taste and odor issue for CU’s customers — was below the threshold for humans to detect a difference in taste or scent of water coming from the Cleveland Filter Plant.
“We feel very good about what’s happening at the filter plant,” Henderson said.
At its June meeting, Henderson told the board of CU’s testing of different types of carbon in an effort to absorb the MIB, and he was able to attribute the July MIB levels to the use of carbon over the past month.
When asked if the algae blooms are something CU will deal with on a more regular basis, Henderson said, “It’s too early to know that … I think time will tell if (the algae bloom) actually goes away and just with the different weather patterns that we experience in the upcoming fall and spring of ’24, I don’t think we can really confidently tell you that we think it will go away — we just don’t know.”
He went on to say, “We’ve invested a lot of time and have hired consultants to look at what what that looks like for us if it is an ongoing problem, so we need to be prepared to provide solutions to address it if it’s ongoing, and that’s something that eventually might come back before the board.”
However, it was noted that CU had not received complaints from customers about the taste or scent of the water over the past month.
Energy authority
Earlier this year, CU announced it was going to become an energy authority, allowing it to provide high-speed broadband internet to customers who wish to opt in to the service.
As CU progresses toward becoming an energy authority, Henderson noted the next few board meetings, starting in August and potentially going through October, will be joint sessions between the Municipal Board and Authority Board.
Marshall Stinnett, CU vice president and CFO, told the board, “The real purpose behind the authority meeting before the asset transfer fully takes place is so that the board is able to put in place all of the operating structure for what the authority will run by.”
Rules and regulations, policies and appointments, Stinnet said, will be established in these sessions.
“The plan, as of today … is that when the Municipal Board meets in October, it will essentially open business and agree to sell its assets to the Authority, close business, and the authority will then take over, from that point on,” Stinnett detailed.
From there, the Municipal Board will end its business and transition into the Authority Board.
The plan is to vote hold the final vote for this change on Oct. 27, with bonds to be sold the week prior to the meeting and closed on Oct. 31.
After the board unanimously approved a purchase order for consulting services, outside plant engineering, project management and network engineering services from FiberRise, totaling at $7,994,590, several board members remarked, “That just put us in the internet business.”
