Less than a week after the Lampasas City Council voted to terminate the city’s contract with its water and wastewater system operator, OMI Inc., the company’s regional director of operations asked the council to reconsider its decision.

Kirby Chaney -- who directs OMI activities in Texas, New Mexico and Colorado -- spoke to the council Monday evening in a workshop session. Chaney apologized for a reporting lapse that resulted in Lampasas receiving a $1,709 fine from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for not issuing a notice for customers to boil their water.

The official noted, however, that OMI has managed Lampasas’ water distribution system and its wastewater system for 17 years, and he asked the council to continue the contract with OMI until October 2011, when the agreement originally was scheduled to end.

Council members voted last week to terminate the contract Oct. 4, and City Manager Michael Stoldt said recently he plans for city staff to begin maintaining the water and wastewater systems this October.

TCEQ fined the city of Lampasas for not issuing a notice to boil water when two samples in 2009 indicated low chlorine residuals in the water distribution system. OMI staff should have notified Lampasas officials of the sample results, said Chaney, who added the company is willing to reimburse the city for the fine. Chaney said that OMI employ- ees have received additional training recently about environmental regulations and legal compliance issues.

“Did we make mistakes? We absolutely did,” Chaney said. “We have taken steps to correct this.”

Although he said he was not trying to argue with council members or city staff, Chaney said TCEQ rules interpretations by OMI staff — and some TCEQ employees — convinced company officials that the two low disinfectant readings did not justify either a required public notice or a boil water order. Lampasas’ water and wastewater systems, Chaney added, never committed what the TCEQ defines as “acute violations” — which can include microbial contamination, acute turbidity at a treatment plant or fecal indicators in water.

If OMI officials had received notice early from the TCEQ about the sampling reporting violations, Chaney said, the company likely could have solved the problems soon enough to prevent Lampasas from facing disciplinary action by the environmental commission.

OMI staff still are seeking rules clarifications from TCEQ officials, he said.

“Even among TCEQ employees there’s still a lack of clarity about the interpretation of each and every rule,” the OMI regional director said.

Continuing the management contract until the fall of 2011, Chaney said, will give city of Lampasas staff ample time to prepare to operate the water and wastewater systems and will enable OMI to make sure its employees “are taken care of.”

If the City Council decides to continue its contract with OMI until the original ending date, Chaney promised the company would provide additional maintenance and technical supervision to reassure Lampasas officials the city’s water and wastewater systems will comply with applicable regulations.

The council took no action, because discussion of the OMI contract was not on the agenda for the regular session.

Also at Monday’s meeting, the council voted 5-0, with members Brad Neely and Evan Stubbs ab- sent, to pay Eckermann Engineering Inc. $9,966 for services related to water capital replacement work. The project involves looping a dead-end water line near U.S. Highway 281 and Farm-to-Market Road 580 and replacing a shallow line on West Avenue B.

The West Avenue B improvement, said Public Works Director Randy Clark, will prevent the line from heating water excessively during the summer, as it has been doing because of its shallow placement.

In other business, the council voted 5-0 to appoint Travis Clark to the Planning & Zoning Commission for a term to end in January 2012. Stoldt noted that Clark is Randy Clark’s son, but he said the P&Z nominee was selected because of his own merits.

“He is eminently qualified,” Stoldt said of the nominee, a civil engineer who works as master planner for the Fort Hood Directorate of Public Works.

In another zoning matter, the City Council tabled a proposed ordinance change, which the council plans to discuss after attending a workshop meeting with P&Z members. The proposed amendment, recommended by P&Z, would increase the allowable building size in retail districts from 40 percent of total lot area to a maximum of 50 percent of lot area.

A rabies vaccination requirement and a parking restriction took effect Monday, when the council approved second readings of both ordinances.

The vaccination ordinance requires each animal at the Lampasas Animal Shelter to receive a rabies shot — or for the owner to provide proof of vaccination — before shelter staff release the pet from the facility.

The other ordinance prohibits parking on the northbound and southbound rights of way along U.S. 281 from the north end of the Sulphur Creek bridge to the city limits, which are just south of the new high school campus and Grace Fellowship.