plawcs
News corner

Pike Lake Area Wastewater Collection System

The PLAWCS Board is a joint powers agreement between Grand Lake and Canosia Townships
 and is governed by their elected supervisors.  

CONNECTIONS 

FINANCES 

Latest News

MAINTENANCE REMINDER

SEASONAL RESIDENTS

STATUS 

Special Award Press Release
Go to:    PLAWCS Information               Home

The PLAWCS construction is now completed.  It cost approximately 8.2 million dollars.  The State of Minnesota granted 4 million dollars to the project through the Wastewater Infrastructure Fund (WIF).  Last week, the Board of Directors approved the final pay request from Barbarossa (who spent less than their contract provided including change orders).  Kenko is expected to reach the same condition in April, and will also be under budget except for change orders approved by the Board of Directors. 

The final system acceptance will be granted approved in April or early May, assuming engineering grants its approval at that time.  Our engineering firm will be over their estimated budget.  We expect a total of 420 connections at this time, 408 are presently connected.  Five are not required to be connected because the properties are not occupied. The new St Louis County properties are two more and five are subject to penalties.  Easements are involved for 294 properties.

  We are upgrading most of the original easements, primarily to provide final up to date engineering drawings, to consolidate easements where we had both Main Line and Connection easements (where Individual Pump Stations were involved) and to eliminate unnecessary language associated with the construction process.  If you had an easement before please check with the office (729-9007) to arrange for a time when the property owners can come and resign your final easement.  They must be notarized.  The office is no longer open at regular hours, but messages will be returned daily

SEASONAL RESIDENTS

We now have a total of 24 residential properties that have requested and been granted seasonal status (qualifying for a reduced monthly rate). In a few cases, this involves more than one connection. Please remember that seasonal status is only granted for one season at a time. The requested must be in writing and state that the property will not be lived in for a continuous period of six months. All requests are sent to the Board of Directors for approval. For planning purposes requests for next year should be received no later than October 31st.

MAINTENANCE REMINDER

Home owners who have individual pump stations should remove the key from their control box, never remove the cover of the pump chamber or open the control box. The box and pump should be opened only by service personnel. We suggest the key be taped or attached to the owners control box. 
 

The individual pump stations are the property of PLAWCS, as are the control boxes, and the property owner is responsible to ensure they are not opened or tampered with. Each owner should have received instructions about who to call if a problem occurs; if you have not, please called the PLAWCS office. If your red light and buzzer activates, you may turn off the buzzer by the switch underneath the box. The light indicates that the chamber under the pump has more than its normal amount of wastewater to remove, but do not worry about it unless it remains on for more than 30 minutes.

 It is presently anticipated that only five connections will remain to be completed as of the end of September.  These owners are being fined and further action is expected at the next Board meeting.   

FINANCES

Our last report indicated PLAWCS may be required to borrow funds to help pay for easement expenses. PLAWCS recently asked their funding source, the Minnesota Public Facility Authority (PFA), to reconsider their definition of “easement related costs”, and fund the engineering and legal expenses we incurred during the normal process of engineering and describing the project. The PFA made a request to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which provides PFA’s loan funds, to clarify its definition of “easement costs”.  
 

The EPA changed their definition, resulting in $80,000 not having to come out of PLAWCS’s operating funds. Our previous financial review indicated that we could be over $100,000 short. This should eliminate the need for PLAWCS to borrow money this year. We will re-examine our finances at the end of the year to determine if any additional borrowing is required.

     top of page

Latest News 

The Caribou Lake Alternative Wastewater System (CLAWS) made a presentation to the St. Louis County Board on August 12, 2003. The presentation was made to update the Board on the progress of effort to implement the proposed Facility Plan. An important aspect is to work with Arrowhead Regional Corrections (ARC) in order to utilize property at Northeast Regional Correction Center (NERCC) for the construction of a Decentralized Wastewater System. At the presentation the County Board adopted the following Resolution No. 521:
 

RESOLVED, that the St. Louis County Board of Commissioners hereby supports the Caribou Lake Alternative Wastewater System (CLAWS) and requests that the Arrowhead Regional Corrections (ARC) begin negotiations with the Canosia and Grand Lake Township Joint Powers Board for purchase/lease or other formal agreement to use NERCC property for the creation of a decentralized wastewater treatment system for CLAWS.