TIFTON — The Tifton City Council heard from ESG Operations, Inc. representatives at Monday night’s regular city council meeting.

City Manager Larry Riner informed the council that the city entered into an agreement with the company last November to take over operation of the local water and wastewater treatment systems. ESG Operations, Inc. is a 10-year old company based in Macon and is the largest southeast-based utility operations company. It’s 100 percent employee and American owned — no outside ownership.

During the meeting, ESG representatives gave a brief client summary report. They stated that things are going in the right direction. Council members were provided with a notebook of information.

Scott Murphy with ESG informed the council that they have been able to address important items once taking over in November.

According to the report, November and December have been very busy months for the local staff. With a start-up date of Nov. 1, 2012, ESG took over operations of the water and wastewater systems for the City of Tifton. During the transition, with the exception of one, all of the city’s existing staff became employees with ESG. Despite the change, the staff have performed well and have received a great deal of very intense training related to safety, process control, human resources and operations. During November and December, all water and wastewater facilities remained in compliance with all federal and state regulations, Murphy explained.

He noted that 18 employees were transitioned and during that time, ESG hosted a dinner for the employees and their spouses to get familiarized with company members.

Murphy also discussed the digesters. Among the highest priority items for ESG immediately following start-up was to rehabilitate the aerobic digesters and return them to operational condition. The digesters are necessary to prepare the sludge from the wastewater plant for land application. If they are not fully functional, according to ESG, the sludge will fail the Specific Oxygen Update Rate Test used to verify that the solids have been properly digested and are acceptable for land application.

According to the information provided in the notebook by ESG, Jeff Buchanan from ESG in Waycross helped to coordinate the efforts to repair the aerators and assure that all tasks were completed within the guidelines of ESG’s safety policies.

Murphy presented a presentation with several photos of the digester repair project. In addition, he discussed the influent pump station controller, which is one of the most vital pieces of equipment in the wastewater plant. He explained that its function is to regulate the pumps at the head-works to ensure that the sewer lines coming in to the plant do not surcharge and potentially overflow. The original pump controller had failed and a direct replacement was priced at $25,000. An alternative was to have a contractor program and install a PLC to control the pumps at a cost of $16,000. Rick Farrow with the ESG Warner Robins project was able to program and install a complete PLC system at a cost of only $4,000, according to ESG.

Murphy said their 2013 plan will include implementing an access management program, developing a 12-year repair and replacement forecast, influent pump rebuild, rehabilitation of the traveling bridge filters, etc.

He noted that the water that leaves the plant is regulated.

Also, during the meeting, Dave Hetzel gave a report on the Keep Tift Beautiful Board. He discussed various projects that the committee have been involved in and explained that through educational programs, they encourage people in the community to recycle.

Tifton Mayor Jamie Cater thanked Hetzel for the great work.

Other topics addressed at the meeting included:

• City Attorney Rob Wilmot updated the council on the golf cart legislation. He noted that the ordinance was repealed. The council decided to get some clarification on the signage. Wilmot searched for some outside help and has drafted up a proposed revision concerning the signage. He noted that possibly by late spring, “we will have folks back on the roads.”

• The council approved the consent agenda: resolution providing for appropriate staff to make deposits/withdrawals in the Georgia Fund 1 for the City of Tifton General Fund 1 (Local Government Investment Pool); resolution providing for appropriate staff to make deposits/withdrawals in the Georgia Fund 1 for the City of Tifton Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax Fund (Local Government Investment Pool); and board report.



To  contact reporter Latasha Everson, call 382-4321.