Jackson approves Trilogy contract for water study

Now that the cost has decreased and the city has a strategy for payment, the Jackson City Council voted Tuesday night to hire Trilogy Engineering Services to conduct a water study required by the state.

The Mississippi State Health Department, working as the primacy agency for the Environmental Protection Agency, has required Jackson to conduct a corrosion control optimization study, which should help the city identify ways to maintain a stable pH. This is in response to the discovery of high levels of lead in some homes across the city in June and again in January and February.

In Tuesday's Jackson City Council meeting, councilmen voted 3-2 in favor of the Trilogy contract. The council also voted unanimously to approve an application for MSDH's emergency loan through the drinking water system emergency loan fund.

The loan would supply $500,000 to the city, $300,000 of which would be spent on the Trilogy corrosion control contract. The rest, Jackson Public Works Director Kishia Powell said, will help "to make interim improvements we need to make."

She said she hopes the improvements will be made within the next month, so that the next sample set taken in July will reflect those changes.

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When city administrators brought the Trilogy contract before the city council initially, councilmen expressed dismay at the $400,000 proposal, which was chosen without a request for proposal or another bidding process.

"We’ve very clearly expressed valid concerns, but I think we have a compromise that allows us to move forward. I think  I will be voting for this item at this time," Councilman Melvin Priester said in Tuesday's meeting.

Priester said he is still concerned by the fact that the "contractor here wrote their own scope of work and no other firms were contacted for quotes according to a meeting I had this week with one of the subcontractors on this project."

"Nevertheless, if the price is more in alignment with what the data I asked for the state to provide, that's where we'll go," Priester wrote on Facebook on April 3.

In March, The Clarion-Ledger reported that the city had already identified a solution to the corrosion issue at the plant.

Two days before the council’s decision to hire Trilogy, Priester wrote: “The City identified a key upgrade to our corrosion control system at the newer water plant years before this lead situation reached its current state. In fact, we asked for and were approved by the state/EPA to receive a loan to do this work.”

When asked why the city had not taken the opportunity sooner, Yarber spokesperson Shelia Byrd would only respond: "The city has a corrosion control treatment program."

In a   March 10 meeting, councilmen asked the MSDH to research the costs of similar corrosion control studies. On April 4, Jim Craid, MSDH director of health protection, responded to their request, which Priester said indicated that the original $400,000 cost proposed by the administration was an inflated d figure.

The letter cites a small water supply in Maine with a population of around 16,000, which recently advertised for a request for proposal to conduct a “Optimization of Corrosion Control Practices” study for  its water treatment facility. Five companies responded with requests ranging from $8,500 to $28,900.

Using those figures, a city the size of Jackson could expect costs between $93,000 to $319,100, the letter states. Powell said the Maine study was a "desktop" study, while the Trilogy contract includes physical pilot testing.

On the same day as Craig's letter, Mayor Tony Yarber proposed a revised contract with Trilogy for just under $300,000, which Priester said was still on the high end.

Trilogy engineer Phillip Gibson indicated after his contract was approved that studies in different water systems, with different treatment needs, cannot be compared with a monetary figure alone. Trilogy came up with the cost based on the specifications in the EPA's Lead and Copper Rule, he said.

Gibson, who has worked on projects for the city of Jackson for over 20 years starting in 1992 with Neel-Schaffer, said he partnered with Trilogy CEO Thessalonian LeBlanc after they worked together at CDM Smith, a Massachussets-based engineering and consulting firm.

Prior to forming Trilogy, LeBlanc served as president for DELMET, a company offering “commercial cleaning, pre- and post-construction cleaning, staffing, consulting and disaster relief,” according to its website. Her resume includes a business degree from the University of Phoenix and an expected summer graduation for an EMBA degree from Prairie View A&M University. She helped coordinate a fundraiser for Yarber in Houston.

Gibson left his senior project manager position at CDM Smith in 2011 to start his own firm, Gibson Engineering, which he said subsequently subcontracted under CDM for projects relating to the city’s wastewater consent decree.

Priester, De'Keither Stamps and Tyrone Hendrix voted in favor of hiring Trilogy while Councilmen Kenneth Stokes and Ashby Foote voted against. Councilwoman Margaret Barret-Simon and Councilman Charles Tillman were absent.

Below is the state's compliance plan for the city.

Contact Anna Wolfe at (601) 961-7326 or awolfe@gannett.com. Follow @ayewolfe on Twitter.