Mark Slown, city manager, city of Ishpeming

ISHPEMING — The Ishpeming City Council took steps to avert a potential wastewater emergency at its Park Street lift station during a special meeting Tuesday.

The council approved a motion to use A. Lindberg & Sons as an emergency backup, after Department of Public Works Director Carl Petersen reported that one of the two pumps at the lift station has failed and cannot be repaired, according to a Tuesday email from City Manager Mark Slown.

“According to Mr. Petersen, the pump that failed is no longer manufactured and not available to us. We have previously been able to repair this pump; however, this time the failure was a broken pump housing — a failure mode we cannot repair,” Slown said. “If the second pump should also fail, then sewage would begin to back up and potentially enter private property. Therefore, some action was needed. The lift station has alarms to warn of such an event; however, we want to be ready, if that alarm happens.”

The council action allows city staff to hire A. Lindberg & Sons to install a temporary bypass for the lift station if the second pump fails.

According to the contingency plan, the city will pay $1,000 for “emergency mobilization, setup of pump and hoses and initial start-up” of a 6-inch Sykes pump and discharge hose for bypass pumping of the lift station, a letter from A. Lindberg & Sons to the city states. Once the bypass pump is in place, the city will pay $800 per day for operation, which includes daily checkup, fueling and 24-hour on-call service in the event of a shutdown pumping issue or freezing.

Petersen brought up lift station operation as a priority during preliminary 2019 budget talks in July, and as a result the city began working with GEI Consultants on an engineering plan for lift station repair and replacement.

“We were trying to be proactive and ready should such a situation occur,” Slown said. “Unfortunately, the pump did fail before the engineering plan was completed.”

He said GEI has been planning to propose an update to facility station, but “due to limited funding, the replacement was not approved in the past.”

In an email Wednesday, GEI Consultants Senior Project Manager Mark Stoor said replacement of both pumps “in place” would cost about $15,000, but eventually the 50-year-old lift station itself, which serves around 55 houses, will need to be replaced.

“The existing station was retrofitted in 1988,” Stoor said. “The pump models from 30 years ago are out of production and there is some retrofitting involved with getting new models put into place. Rebuilding an existing pump takes 10 weeks and costs approximately $30,000.”

He said as the result of negotiations with pump suppliers, the overall problem could be resolved within the next month.

“The replacements are scheduled to be put in by mid-March,” Stoor said, “which should be much lower risk of having to bypass.”

Lisa Bowers can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 242. Her email address is lbowers@miningjournal.net.