MINUTES
Technical Advisory Council for Onsite Wastewater Treatment
January 15, 2003
Meeting held at the MSU Turfgrass Research Center, Founder’s Room,
9:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m.
Members and Alternates Present: Chuck Cousino, Chair; Regina Young, Ron Lindsay, Wayne Kukuk (New MWEA Representative), Ted Loudon, Gary White, Ric Falardeau.
Minutes of the meeting of November 4, 2002 were reviewed with no corrections or alterations noted (not sure they were formally accepted).
Old Business
MEHA Ready Reference Document: Gary White indicated he had emailed the ready reference document to all TAC members and gotten little response. It is assumed that this means the materials are okay to forward to MEHA. There was discussion on a few items:
Websites - Gary will be sure the URLs for National Smallflows Clearinghouse and other sources of information are correct.
Use of the term "hydrotek" - Gary will check with MEHA about the use of a proprietary name in the manual.
Discussion of pressure distribution software - Chuck will check with Larry regarding his plans for distribution of his pressure distribution software and how it should be distributed or referred to in the manual.
Diagrams that were "lifted" from the EPA poster - the use of these alternative system diagrams and descriptions will be carefully referenced to EPA so that the source of the wording is not attributed to the TAC.
Port-A-John table from MSTA - no one is sure of the origin of the table that recommends the number of Port-A-Johns for various crowd sizes and lengths of time people are at an event but it will be credited to MSTA.
Gary plans to wrap up the work on the ready referenced manual and transmit it to MEHA very soon.
Operating Permits
Chuck reviewed the material that he had put together for the January Wastewater Conference (presentation visuals attached with these minutes). TAC members are asked to review and comment on the content of Chuck’s Powerpoint presentation.
Kent County is about ready to go to a public
hearing with a program requiring regular inspection of all onsite wastewater
treatment systems. Ric circulated the document that Kent County has developed
along with materials developed by Grand Valley State University as part of a 319
project. He will email these materials to each TAC member for review. Dave
Kraker will be invited to the next TAC meeting to discuss the process that Kent
County went through in developing this program and answer questions. Ric
Falardeau will contact Dave about being a part of the meeting on March 12, 2003.
MDEQ Mound Guidance Document
This document has been sent out fairly widely including to all Local Health Departments. MALEHA has conducted a formal review and responded back to Ric through a MALEHA subcommittee. Ric will incorporate changes suggested by MALEHA (and others?) and will issue a final draft of the document approximately February 1, 2003 to MALEHA for a second review. The material related to mound design for highly treated effluent may be removed from this document and held for use in another document that will deal specifically with soil dispersal of highly treated effluent.
Residential Flow Study
Loudon committed to have this finished up including the executive summary and ready for distribution at the MEHA annual educational conference in mid-March. It was to have been at the January Wastewater Conference but it was not finished and distributed at that time.
Commercial Flow Study
Ted indicated that he and Del have discussed some about the commercial flow study and that Del has some notes and is taking the lead on this. Chuck forwarded to Ted some additional data on commercial flows and reminded all members to please check their files for good commercial flow data and forward to Del or Ted.
Bylaw Revision
Chuck pointed out that the Bylaws are in need of revision to provide for MWEA membership in the TAC. Chairman Cousino indicated that he would check with Larry Stephens for an electronic copy of the Bylaws and see that revisions are drafted.
Election of Officers
An election was conducted by the members present. Chuck Cousino was elected for another term as Chairman, Larry Stephens as another term as Secretary, and Ted Loudon for another term as Vice-Chair.
Representatives to the TAC
Gary White will check with MALEHA to see about a replacement for Bob Long. Gary will also check with Steve Aguinaga to see whether Steve plans to continue on the TAC. Chuck will check with MSTA about their representatives. They have a new president ---Jay Brendel.
Future meeting dates:
March 12, 2003, May 14, 2003 and June 25, 2003 were selected as future meeting dates.
The Founders Room at the Hancock Turfgrass Research center was scheduled for all of these meetings but the meeting March 12, which is to include Dave Kraker may be held at a location more convenient for Mr. Kraker.
Respectfully submitted,
Ted Loudon
Acting Secretary for this Meeting