The Fulton City Council meeting Tuesday dealt with several updates on existing projects and plans.
Interim City of Fulton Engineer Kyle Bruemmer updated the council on the recent progression at the new warehouse facility, the Vine Street Bridge project, and the storm water management plan.
Bruemmer spent most of Tuesday at the construction site for the warehouse facility. He said the new administration building is coming along nicely, as the wiring is being finished and the structure of the drop ceilings are starting to be hung. The Caldwell building is the furthest along and almost wrapped up. The municipal garage building utility crew is about 60 percent completed wiring the building. It's under roof and doors are on the building. The utility garage is trailing the municipal garage in terms of completion time.
"We're probably 20 to 25 percent along on wiring the building," Bruemmer said.
City crews are starting to pour concrete in front of the base of the solid waste building before tackling the municipal garage.
The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) inspected Fulton in mid June for compliance with the city's MS 4 permit. Bruemmer received the lengthy report back and told the council, "of course, we are not compliant." Bruemmer said city officials need to look at the permit and the storm water mangement plan, which was "put together to get us compliant with the permit."
"We've ignored and essentially haven't done a lot of what is in the storm water management plan," Bruemmer said, addressing the council. "We have not made our best effort in addressing the plan, and essentially what they (DNR) want us to do is make our best effort."
Bruemmer said the only issue besides of the storm water management plan that was in the report concerned specific requirements with Stinson Creek.
He wants to investigate what the storm water is contributing to the lack of dissolved oxygen and too many organics in the creek.
"We're going to start testing Stinson Creek and test our way to a treatment plan to see if storm water is contributed or not," Bruemmer said. "And if it is, we'll have to chase it further - more sampling sizes of Stinson Creek. We can target specific outfalls within Stinson Creek."
Bruemmer said an abundance of grass clippings and fertilizers combined with heavy rains could wash contaminants into the creek and may contribute to the creek's problem, but he is unsure.
The report states that the issues are most apparent when the creek is during low flow times. Bruemmer told the council that the primary issue is the dissolved oxygen and oxygen being below water quality standards. Bruemmer said the testing will decide if the city needs waste load allocations.
"We're losing a lot of the oxygen just through leaves and vegetation that fall into the creek and when they decompose they suck the oxygen out," Director of Administration Bill Johnson said. "We won't be able to eliminate that."
Bruemmer said he has until Aug. 7 to respond to DNR's report.
The last engineering-related update Bruemmer provided involved a mandatory pre-bid meeting for the Vine Street Bridge project, which attracted five parties interested in project design plans and building the bridge. Cost and time are major factors in the plans.
Johnson explained to council members that support walls on the side of the bridge are going to stay and that the bridge project involves removing the current bridge deck and the attached sidewalk and adding a new bridge deck and sidewalk. The existing support structure is in good shape, according to Bruemmer's meeting with the MoDOT inspector, and he did not have any concerns about the substructure.
The bridge is limited to five tons going both ways with two lanes of traffic, but the MoDOT inspector said he is okay with 10 tons crossing the bridge with one traffic lane if necessary.
Johnson said the bridge's steel beams are rusted away and must be replaced, but the middle support beams remain in the best shape.
Bruemmer said all proposals must be submitted by Aug. 5.