Benicia City Council has added more duties and $23,500 to its contract with EOA, a firm that has been providing technical assistance to the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

Since Sept. 18, 2014, the firm has helped city staff prepare for a mandated National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Wastewater Permit, a Local Limits review of pollutants of concern and report, the Benicia Sewer System Management Plan and the city’s Pretreatment Program under the original $49,500 contract, according to Graham Wadsworth, Public Works director.

Since Wadsworth’s request to expand the contract was approved without comment along with other matters on the Council’s Consent Calendar last Tuesday, he had no additional comment other than his staff report.

But in that report, he said city staff doesn’t have the expertise or time to do the work on its own.

The amended contract will let EOA, an environmental engineering consulting firm with offices in Oakland and Sunnyvale, provide technical assistance on the city’s Potable Water System Permit for the water treatment plant; prepare a notice of intent and an engineering report for using recycled water produced at the wastewater treatment plant for irrigating the landscaping at the plant; help city employees in scoping the Bencia Water Reuse Project to make sure it complies with the NPDES permit; and attend Bay Area Clean Water Agencies meetings and summarize those meetings for city staff.

By the same vote, the Council approved a request by Benicia Public Library Director Diane Smikahl to modify the Arts and Culture Commission’s policy on distribution of funds for grantees and fundraising, particularly to manage donations that exceed what is projected for a particular fiscal year.

Smikahl said the change would allow the commission to accept and manage donations that exceeed what is expected to be spent during a particular fiscal year.

Those donations will be deposited so that they are available in future fiscal years, Smikahl explained in her report.

The commission has two separate accounts, Smikahl explained. Its Arts and Culture Commission Fund is for money approved by the Council for nonprofit arts and culture grantees and for commission supplies.

In a system that resembles the practice of the Human Services Board, the Arts and Culture Commission recommends grant awards to the Council for approval, grantees get funds quarterly and recipients are visited by commission members.

Any money that either is withheld by the commission from grantees or not used by them goes back to the General Fund if there isn’t enough time to ask the Council’s permission to distribute the funds to other grantees.

The Arts and Culture Commission Fundraising Fund was established so the panel could augment city funding and raise money to stimulate arts and culture activities, events and projects. The panel expects to outline its fundraising efforts for prospective years in its annual report, but doesn’t require the commission to obtain Council approval for those events.

In her report, Smikahl wrote that the commission’s fundraising fund is a separate account for money the panel raises or receives as donations, gifts or grants that exceed money it expects to distribute. These funds carry over into the future fiscal year, she wrote.

The Council also received Wadsworth’s monthly water report, in which he wrote that while statewide conservation of potable (drinking) water was just 3.6 percent compared to consumption during the same time in 2013, Benicians had reduced their water use by 30.2 percent. By March, he wrote, Benicia’s daily water use was 69.9 gallons per person, compared to the statewide average of 84.4 gallons per person each day.

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