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City of Ann Arbor SSWWEP - Citizens Advisory Committee Coordination — City of Ann Arbor

Proposal for CAC Consideration of Non-FDD Alternatives

Posted by Charlie Fleetham on 11 Feb, 2014
Category: No category

We now have three non-FDD alternatives on the table:  1) The OHM collection of Best Practices (furnished by Lori today), 2) Frank Burdick's Alternative Solution to Reduce Real Sanitary Flow (posted today) and 3) Frank Burdick's  Gravity Back Up Proposal (to be discussed Wed in the 6:30 pm tech briefing). 

We will not be able to give these alternatives the in depth consideration they will require on Wednesday night; however, CAC members could organize in small groups after the meeting around the alternatives and with post meeting OHM Tech support (as needed) come back to the March meeting with an analysis of the alternative and some go forward recommendations.

Please let me know if you would be interested in participating in one of these committees.

Thanks!

Charlie

Comments

Frank Burdick on 11 Feb, 2014:

I would also like hear if OHM or the folks at Washtenaw County could provide more info on the PARJANA system that I had found.  I did receive a response from Evan Pratt.  He is familiar with this process and it might help mitigate wet weather flows in low areas from flooding yards.  This may, in turn reduce the flow to the footing drains, and, we all know what that means...

I recognize that this may better fall under the mission of another one of the other study.  Keep in mind however that the Upper Mallets CAC is complete, and I don't think that the Calibration Studies is looking for solutions as much as raw data.  Hence, if not us, who?

Frank Burdick on 11 Feb, 2014:

Regarding C. Fleethams statement: We will not be able to give these alternatives the in depth consideration they will require on Wednesday night; 

Do you mean THURSDAY  night?

Frank Burdick on 11 Feb, 2014:

Regarding C. Fleethams statement: We will not be able to give these alternatives the in depth consideration they will require on Wednesday night; 

Do you mean THURSDAY  night?

Charlie Fleetham on 12 Feb, 2014:

Yes, I meant Thursday night, when the CAC meeting will occur.  Tomorrow night is the Tech Debrief.   Thanks for catching my mistake.

Jim Osborn on 12 Feb, 2014:

Frank said, "I recognize that this may better fall under the mission of another one of the other study.  Keep in mind however that the Upper Mallets CAC is complete, and I don't think that the Calibration Studies is looking for solutions as much as raw data..."

I agree that we should look at this data, as I have always disliked the wall of a separate study. If an area's storm drains are inadequate, then more water may be around a home's footings and cracks in sewer pipes and eventually enter the sewer.

I'm 100% sure that if we are provided this data, that Frank will carefully examine it and if there is any useful information in it, he will share it with those of us who may not have the time to read it all. I would like to know how some areas are affected. I would love to someday have sanitary sewer flow data from a sewage troubled neighborhood that also has storm drain issues and then have the storm drains fixed, or enlarged so there is no flooding and then have new data when the sanitary sewer flows measured afterwards.

I do hope that in the future that if any storm drain improvements are made, before and after sanitary sewer flow measurements over many rains are collected.

"...Hence, if not us, who?" While this was first said by Rabbi Hillel 2,000 years ago, Gov George Romney, Ronald Reagan, and Obama have all used it. This statement has been repeated a lot lately on basecamp.

(Why the double posting @ 6:44 PM, and the "unscheduled event" on Friday, both by Frank? Is Basecamp causing these errors?)

Frank Burdick on 12 Feb, 2014:

Perhaps OHM can help us all understand the impact of an individual home to the FDD flow.

Please see the attached diagram and calculation.

Michelle Lovasz on 12 Feb, 2014:

Frank, on Parjana, what I have read of the responses is that there is not
enough information to truly evaluate it. It seems a brilliant (if
expensive) idea, but didn’t even a representative from Parjana say that
they themeselves did not have data? Its hard to recommend a solution to
civil engineers without data. Is Parjana the end? Is there another
company doing this same sort of work? Has any other municipality tried
this?

Joe Conen on 12 Feb, 2014:

One of the limitations of Parjana seems to be the depth of the water table. It sounded to me like this system might help convey surface water to the water table, but this may be of little value for homes when/where the footing drains are below the top of the water table.  This is apparently not unusual in Lans Downe, if I understand the Upper Malletts storm water report correctly.
Joe