Sewer plant news

Well, We have some good news about the sewer plant. since it was built we have continually had issues with set of 4 pieces that sit in the tanks and have had to replace each of them at one point or another. I questioned the reason we just keep paying to have them replaced and not go back to the manufacturer to get a reason for the failure. They told us that is could be a problem during manufacturing or when the seals are installed on site. We have found that no other customer has had these issues but they can not see why we are having them.
At my, and the councils urging the town manager was able to meet directly with the vice president of the company and although his director of manufacturing did not want to refund us for our costs on these, Jeff told them that we have been a good customer and have allowed them to give tours of our plant as a demo for other potential customers and that we, the council and town, would like a full refund of monies spent repairing and replacing the pieces and they agreed. We will be getting a check for the money spent on replacement parts as well as them waiving a few thousand we still owe from previous construction. This should amount to 15 to 20 thousand total that can be put back into town operations.
In 2009 we will begin looking at the operation of the plant and the costs associated with paying United Water to run the plant (which is substantial). The current contract runs out in 2010 and I would very much like the town to hire a municiple engineer who can likely handle a lot of the daily aspects of running the plant. The salary for an engineer could likely be about 25% of what we currently pay which would be a substantial savings. I will post more as we progress.