Hello my name is Steve Pitkanen. If you do not know me already I have a wife (Michelle), 5 children, and 5 grandchildren and have lived in Watertown for the past 20 years. I coached basketball for 29 years, with 4 of those years as the LHS Varsity Girls Head Coach. I have served on the school board, Chair of the Community Ed Advisory Council; Early Childhood Family Education Advisory Council; and as the Girls Booster Basketball Director and Coordinator.
I am the current City of Eden Prairie Water Treatment Plant Supervisor. I have had the privilege to be employed by the city for the past 20-and-a-half years, all in the water treatment plant. I served as the first Union co-chair for the Labor Management Committee and served on the Safety Committee. I have had the opportunity to watch the city grow and expand as well as participate in two plant expansions.
Two of the things that I have heard repeatedly over the years, in person and from letters to the editor, is that
- the tax dollars were spent on the new water plant or the utility workers or new wells or new towers, etc.; and
- the city should have done a better job of planning and drilled more wells, so that we could get by with no watering restrictions, surcharges, etc.
I would like to talk about these two items today. I feel there is a lot of misinformation out there and a lot of misunderstanding.
The Utility Division has a Treatment staff and a Field Operations staff. The treatment staff operates and maintains the treatment facility and the wells, and the field staff takes care of the water distribution, sewer collection, and storm water systems. The Utility Division performs many services, with the field operations staff more visible and more involved with our residents on a daily basis than our treatment staff. They install water meters, investigate complaints with water pressure and tastes or odors, clean sewer lines, flush fire hydrants, inspect new construction projects, locate underground water and sewer utilities for people who need to dig into the ground, and unplug storm drains or storm ponds, as well as performing many other services. They are also on call 24/7.
The treatment staff is more unseen. They are responsible for treating the water and providing a good safe product to your home. They monitor the wells and the reservoirs (towers) and do their best to keep the system at a safe level to provide adequate system pressure and fire protection. They are on duty around the clock treating, monitoring, adjusting, and testing the water for you. The Utility Division also works together in many ways to provide other services, such as testing the water system routinely. Together they provide valuable services to the residents. We do not operate using tax dollars or general fund dollars; instead it is an enterprise funded operation. What that means, is that our services are funded from permit fees, water and sewer access fees, and utility bills. We try to budget as close to what our expenses will be to be good stewards of public funds and to be accountable to our residents and community while still trying to allow a little financial flexibility for unplanned emergencies (main breaks, equipment failure, etc.).
As for planning, the City of Eden Prairie does a Comprehensive Plan that includes all historical data and projections for all of the City of Eden Prairie’s operations. The Comprehensive Plan is approved by the City Council, and then submitted to the Metropolitan Council for review. This along with the Water Emergency and Conservation Plan that is submitted to the DNR every 10 years will determine whether we will be allowed to add any additional wells. This plan includes historical data about population and water demands. It also includes information about capital improvements, cooperative agreements with surrounding communities, conservation programs, and projections for the next couple of decades for population and water demands. It takes a lot work by many people to gather the data needed for this report.
The DNR reviews the report and determines from the report if it will grant any requests for additional appropriation permits for wells. They also will receive a recommendation from the Metropolitan Council. The current projections for population exceed the original projections by about 12,000 people, which are addressed in the plan requesting more additional wells. The DNR’s role is to make sure that our aquifers are not over taxed and run dry. They monitor how many wells are in each aquifer and issue appropriation permits which limit how much water each user can withdraw from each well.
(Click the image on the right to enlarge. © 2003 Metropolitan Council.)
We currently have 14 wells in the Prairie du Chein-Jordan aquifer. I know a lot of residents are unhappy with a surcharge fee for excess water use. Did you know that the City also has to pay a summer surcharge in addition to a regular fee? Our regular fee for last year was $7.50 per million gallons or about $23,000.00. The summer surcharge is figured out by subtracting January’s total from each of the peak summer months of June, July, and August, and multiplying that amount of water by $20.00 (for an additional cost of about $18,000.00 dollars).
The DNR also looks to see if the community has a water conservation program, because without one, it is more difficult to get approval of more wells. It is hard to get more wells approved if they are just going to be used to water lawns in the summer. I looked around the state and out of state and found it very interesting that some communities allow even numbered addresses to water 2 days a week, odd addresses 2 days a week, and businesses 2 days a week with no watering by anyone 1 day a week. Most communities have an odd/even watering schedule with a daily no watering time that varies from town to town. I firmly believe if everyone followed the current odd/even schedule and did no watering between 12:00pm and 5:00pm that we would be fine. Unfortunately, not everybody does. When our towers get low or empty, we have no water for fire protection, we experience very low system pressure, and the possibility of contamination to our potable water supply becomes an urgent concern.
When you water, horticulturists recommend watering your lawn deep and infrequently to promote a strong root system. Frequent watering promotes a shallow root system. It is also recommended to water in the early morning or late afternoon when evaporation and wind are usually at their lowest. On a warm sunny day, up to 30% can evaporate just from the sun. Sprinklers that use smaller drops or mist the water often cause the water to evaporate before it reaches the ground. Sprinklers that have big drops and are closer to the ground work best. The City provides a safe, quality product for $1.55 per 1000 gallons, which is one of the lower rates in the metro area, and the water is softened from about 320ppm (17.1 grains per gallon) to about 90ppm (5 grains per gallon). I hope some of this information is helpful.
Here are some web sites to visit for information regarding our water resource:
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/water/index.html; http://water.usgs.gov ;
http://www.metrocouncil.org/environment/Water/index.htm ;
You also can do a Google search for water conservation, aquifers, or just about anything else related to water.
