Village Board discusses wastewater improvements
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by Renee Bettendorf
BOYCEVILLE — At their meeting on Monday evening, the Boyceville Village Board approved a professional services agreement with the engineering firm MSA for long overdue wastewater treatment improvements estimated to cost several million dollars.
“I think we started talking about this back in 2013 or 14,” said Board Trustee Jonathan Farrell of the project.
MSA evaluated the wastewater treatment plant and wrote a facility plan for the plant in 2022. The plan was updated in 2023 and includes estimates for design and construction services totalling $7.2 million.
Eric Barclay, an engineer at MSA Professional Services, said the village had waited for information from a large user of the plant, but since that never materialized, it’s time for the village to simply move forward with the project.
“Don (the recently retired public works director) was patching things together until we could get this project going,” said Barclay.
Rahim Ansari, MSA engineer, also attended the meeting and outlined the project for the board. He said the treatment plant has five ponds, four of which require aeration. Parts of the current aeration system are from the 1970’s and 80’s and MSA’s proposal includes replacement of the equipment that aerates the ponds which are called blowers.
Three new blowers will be installed and housed in a new building. Two existing buildings that currently house six old blowers will be repurposed for other village uses. Some pond reshaping will be done as well as upgrades to the lift stations and the installation of a computer monitoring system.
MSA will start their design phase soon and will likely have more detailed financial information for the board in May. Plans for the project could be submitted in September and the village could apply for a clean water fund loan through the DNR by March 2025 with construction beginning in June 2025.
Clean water fund loans are reduced interest loans given to communities in Wisconsin for publicly owned wastewater or stormwater infrastructure projects that are needed to achieve or maintain compliance with federal and state regulations, according to the DNR website.
The board also held a public hearing during their meeting about a proposed variance to Ohly Americas for the purpose of building some new storage silos.
Ohly employee, Mike Bischel said the new silos would be in the same location as the old ones and will be of a similar size. He said the DNR granted Ohly permission to build the new silos pending village approval. After no public comments were made the board approved the variance.
Police Chief Greg Lamkin updated the board on the activities of the department in January which included 20 traffic stops, 16 ordinance complaints, 35 business checks/vacation watches, one accident and 106 other calls for service.
“There was nothing super exciting as far as arrests this month,” he said.
His report did highlight two traffic stops and two theft charges. In one of the traffic stops a driver was pulled over and it was discovered that they had a license that had been revoked since 2003. The driver was charged with criminal operating after revocation.
In another traffic stop a driver was found to not have a driver’s license and had been pulled over numerous times. The suspect was charged with criminal operating without a license, third offense.
After the department forwarded a theft investigation involving a firearm to the DA’s office, a suspect was charged with theft of a firearm.
In another theft investigation, the department was able to recover a victim’s stolen property by working with the school to view video surveillance. The suspect was a visitor from a nearby school and was charged with misdemeanor theft.
Chief Lamkin, who has been updating the village’s municipal codes for a couple of years, offered to review title 13 for the village. Title 13 is the part of the village’s municipal code that deals with zoning. It’s a long document with 231 sections and 208 pages. He said he would look it over and then send it to MSA and the village attorney for review then any revisions or updates could be approved by the board.
He said it would probably take him a couple of months to go over the ordinance and that the board could look over and approve it in sections. The board agreed to have Lamkin review title 13.
After quite a lot of discussion, the board voted to change how village employee vacation time is accrued. Back in December they voted to change the vacation policy. The original policy stated that employees earn 80 hours of vacation after they work a year. The new policy stated that vacation time would be earned at each pay period.
Some board members thought the process for changing to the new policy would short village employees of vacation time. Others thought they would actually get more vacation time than they were due. While still others asserted that no change would occur in vacation time.
In the end they voted to revert back to the original vacation policy.
In other business the Boyceville Village Board also:
-Heard from Public Works Director, Craig Dotseth that the village plowed snow on January 13, for the first time this winter.
-Learned from Clerk Treasurer, Brittany Halvorson that the airport will resume fuel sales soon.
-Heard from Halvorson that Trim Lights/Reindeer Acres has reimbursed the village for the Friendship Garden electric bill which was $484 for 2023.
-Learned from Board President, Luke Montgomery that there is room for a gaga ball pit at Andy Pafko Park.
-Approved Village Employees Tom Mrdutt and Travis Burnett as Operators in Charge of wastewater and water until Dotseth gets his Operator in Charge certification.
