Shown from left during Mentone’s Town Council meeting Wednesdsay, March 6, are Mentone Town Councilman Tim Croy, Clerk-Treasurer Amanda Yaprak, Councilwomen Jill Gross and Shelly Krueger and town attorney Andrew Grossnickle. Photo by Jackie Gorski, Times-Union.

By Jackie Gorski
Times-Union

MENTONE – Mentone Town Council approved Wednesday, March 6, for Commonwealth Engineers Inc. to do a lead service line inventory.

Chris Harrison, business development manager with Commonwealth, said the town is required to complete a lead service line inventory by Oct. 16.

The lead service line inventory identifies if there’s any lead service lines in the area and classifies service line material. Even if there are no lead service lines in the area, there is still a requirement the town accumulate the information and submit it to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management by Oct. 16, Harrison said.

To address lead in drinking water, it is important for water systems to develop and maintain an inventory of service line materials, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency website.

Harrison said the IDEM and the Indiana Financial Authority started this process last year, so it is something new.

At the population level Mentone is at, the inventory cost is unfunded. Harrison said for some of the larger communities, the inventory is funded by the Indiana Financial Authority.

Harrison said they’ll ask Clerk-Treasurer Amanda Yaprak to give Commonwealth a list of all the town’s utility customers and go through all the service lines and determine what type of material they have, Harrison said. They will do that through a combination of ways, including sending out flyers to homeowners with survey information they can fill out. With that, the homeowner can take a picture of the utility lines.

Councilwoman Shelly Krueger asked if Commonwealth expected homeowners to crawl into their crawl space if they have one.

Harrison said that is where they can call for help and that’s where Commonwealth comes in and sends the information over to the staff taking care of collecting information.

Utilities Superintendent Josh Shepherd said if a homeowner marks the survey as an unknown line, it automatically gets marked as a lead line.

Council President Jill Gross asked what kind of return rate Commonwealth was looking for the surveys. Harrison said they can do a 35% return. Commonwealth can look at other factors such as age of the home to get an idea of what material the utility line is made of.

Once the information is collected, Commonwealth will sit down with Mentone representatives to see if the information makes sense.

The only requirement at this time is for the lead service line inventory be done, Harrison said.

The typical cost of the investory is about $15 per resident or customer. Yaprak said there are 380 meters that are hooked up to town utilities. The estimated cost for the inventory was $5,000.

Harrison said he estimated the inventory to be completed in about six months.

The council approved for Gross to sign the agreement for Commonwealth to do the inventory after town attorney Andrew Grossnickle looks at the agreement.

Later in the meeting, Grossnickle brought up the sewer rate study the council heard last month.

In February, Baker Tilly recommended the town increase its sewer rate by 41.18%.

Grossnickle said the process to increase the sewer rate would be to hold two meetings about the rate increase. During the first meeting, the council would have to introduce an ordinance for the increase. The council would then hold a public hearing about the rate increase. The council could then approve the rate increase if they chose to do so after the public hearing.

Grossnickle said they could set it up so the ordinance could be introduced in May and have the public hearing in June.

In other business, the council:

• Heard the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs approved the town’s application for Community Development Block Grant funds. The town is planning on using the grant funds for upgrades at Mentzer Park.

• Approved Shepherd to purchase a John Deere mower from GreenMark Equipment, Plymouth, for $13,500.

• Was reminded the Easter Egg Hunt is 10 a.m. March 30 at Mentzer Park.

• Heard spring cleanup is May 15.

The next meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. April 10.