Judging sludge, protecting water

The Encampment Town Council met at 7 p.m. on Thursday with all council members present with the exception of Bill Craig. Mayor Greg Salisbury and Doreen Harvey Town Clerk/Treasurer were also in attendance.

The agenda and minutes from July 11 were quickly approved. Once those items were taken care of, Harvey went over the financials. The council approved the July payroll and contracted liabilities in the amount of $31,005.81, manual late month payments totaling $636.25 and the payment of the regular monthly bills in the amount of $40,293.96.

Michelle Christopher from the Wyoming Association of Rural Water Systems was the first public guest to speak.

“I was contacted by both the public works director Katrina (Nuhn) and your clerk Doreen about working with you guys on the source water protection plan, they said you guys have a source water assessment that is really good and thorough, we just need to get the rubber to hit the road, in my opinion,” Christopher said. “An assessment is one thing that says this what our water quality is, a plan says this is how we are going to protect our water quality and these are the people we are going to contact and work with. Largely in your case, I am talking about going to the Forest Service and maybe the private land owner that is up there and to make sure that the water quality for the town of Encampment is something they need to consider if any changes are going on.”

She suggested annual meetings for water quality plans and submitting it to the county. She also suggested presenting these plans to the Department of Environmental Quality so permits had all relevant information concerning water source for the town.

After she spoke, Christopher asked if the council had any questions.

“How fast can you do this?” Salisbury asked.

Christopher said the bulk of the assessment was done and she estimated a plan could be ready in the beginning of October.

Salisbury said the quicker, the better.

“The thing is, we don’t know if any permits are being filed; we aren’t hearing a lot of information,” Salisbury said.

“So time is of the essence,” Christopher commented. “We can start working on it next week. I will get started.”

The council approved Christopher to immediately start working on a source water protection plan.

Chuck Bartlett, president of the Platte Valley Auto Club presented a check of $500 to the Riverside/Encampment Fire Department.

“We know the job you do and we appreciate it,” Bartlett said as he gave the check to Katrina Nuhn.

Jon Nelson, from North Fork Engineering, said the past month has been focused on sludge removal.

“We have been talking with some sludge removal contractors and trying to get some preliminary costs,” Nelson said. “We also did another round of sludge judging and we got some good data going back to 2012, 2013, 2016 and 2019 and it is showing sludge is accumulating, which is to be expected, but we have new accurate numbers as of today.”

He said some of the older projection sheets were not accurately calculating the sludge and he believes the cost of sludge removal could be less than anticipated.

Nelson said he would be going to Lander to see their filtration system which could give information when the lagoon goes into phase two. Phase one is the removal of the sludge.

Resolution 2019-06 establishing a non-emergency water on/off fee of $25 was approved .

Block 54 lots 13-17 lien was paid in full. The council approved removing the lien.

For the Copper Days Festival, being held Sept. 7-9, a malt beverage permit was approved for the Lions Club and a catering permit for the opera house was approved.

Irene Archibald was selected as Encampment’s Specific Purpose Joint Powers Board.

The council approved the transfer of additional year end water and sewer proceeds to the town’s reserve funds.

The office of State Lands and Investment State Revolving Fund loan contract was approved and the council authorized the origination fee of $2,500 and to sign relevant documents to get the loan.

$15,638.57 was approved to pay Ferguson Enterprises for water meters.

The council approved signing the contract from the Carbon County School District No. 2 Recreation Board for a grant of $6,500.

$500 was approved for the Fire Department’s purchase of fire prevention and safety education supplies.

The council adjourned at 7:28 p.m.

The next scheduled meeting is at 7 p.m. on Sept. 12 at the Encampment Town Hall.