City Council Meeting - Cornelius

The produce and berries were starting to come on, so the market would have more
vendors. The Public Advisory Board for the CDBG has resumed meeting. The Board did
not do much on the 14 th when they met, next month the Board would meet on the 12 th .
Councilor Schamp reported that the follow-up meeting about the Take Care of Cornelius
Day would be held Wednesday, July 11 at 6:30 pm at Little Italy to recap this year’s
event and hopefully start laying the foundation for next year’s event.
B. Mayors Report: No report.
C. City Manager Report: Aquifer Storage Recovery (ASR)
City Manager Rob Drake noted his memorandum and recommendation distributed to
Council in the agenda packet, which included a submitted bid. He provided a brief
background on ASR, referencing diagrams also included in the packet, and described
how the process worked and could benefit the City’s water supply. He has had personal
experience with ASR and the firm that submitted a proposal to the City. That same firm
developed ASR for Beaverton and also at the Joint Water Commission. At present the
Joint Water Commission is developing another ASR well, which will be jointly owned.
If the Joint Water Commission’s analysis provides some confidence, he would return to
the Council to discuss drilling a well to confirm what the engineers believe the strata is
like.
Larry Eaton seemed optimistic about the results of ASR given current knowledge of
Cornelius’ geology. He was not ready to commit, but had estimated 50 to 100 million
gallons. City Manager Drake said he would be pleased if 50 million could be put in the
ground. Cornelius averages about 400 million gallons a year, about a million on average
and about a million and a half a day at peak, so that would take care of the needs during
peak periods; even 50 million gallons would get the City through the bulk of the
summer. If ASR proved to be a viable option, the capital expense would be about $2
million based on projections, the City’s need and what the firm would develop, which
was akin to the cost of a two million gallon reservoir. Imagine capitalizing on a billion
gallons of water. City Hall would be burned before you could levy that kind of money to
pay for it. At this point, he did not know what it would cost to drill a test well; he had
asked Mr. Eaton to be fair on a bid and the firm was, then he would see if the Council
would support it and then look at the feasibility. He would request that Mr. Eaton
include a cost estimate, based on science and his experience, in the report.
The test well would be anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 feet. The valley has about 500
feet of silt in it and bedrock is required for storage. He confirmed that the $7,000 would
come from the Water Fund; from the money the City had already been saving.
Mayor Dalin stated he considered this to be an alternative means analysis. He believed
$7,000 was a reasonable investment to find out whether ASR was a viable option. He
commented that next steps would likely involve property issues with regard to where
Cornelius City Council
Minutes-June 18, 2012 Page 7 of 9