The City Council met Tuesday night to discuss the Capital Improvements Plan for the period from 2008 to 2013.

“Most of the projects here have been seen before, so there shouldn’t be many new items here,” said City Manager Steve Schainker.

The Capital Improvements Plan details how the city plans to spend its money on aspects such as public safety, utilities and transportation. If this draft is followed, the city will spend almost $240 million in improvements over the next five years.

One of the issues that took longer to discuss was the state of the water plant. John Dunn, director of water and pollution control, said the plant needed to be renovated for various reasons.

“The reasons for suggesting most of these programs come from either an increase in demand, aging infrastructure or improved safety,” Dunn said.

The Ames water plant, while receiving expansions every 20 years or so, was built in the 1920s. As a result, some of the metal and concrete aspects of the plant are beginning to fall apart.

At one point, Dunn showed a slideshow of pictures of the plant and, pointing to a concrete wall around a main pipe, said “I could take my screwdriver and force that part of the wall down.”

The capacity of the plant is falling behind as well. While it can currently provide 12 million gallons per day, records show that it is currently at 82 percent capacity.

“85 percent is usually the golden number for when facilities need to design an expansion,” Dunn said.

Dunn is asking for $30 million to design and construct the plant.

“No one part of the project is worth $30 million, but overall, this plant needs serious attention,” he said.

Also discussed was the obsolete outdoor storm warning system.

Ames Police Chief Chuck Cychosz mentioned an example of how it could be improved.

“We had a bit of a scare at a football game where a tornado came through Ames,” he said. “After that, we got complaints about some faulty sirens. We looked into it, and more than one are not reliable.”

The other big issue discussed was the electric department. The department has had issues with the reliability of one of the main generators, and one of the programs was an increase in the base load generating capacity of the plant.

Don Kom, director of electric services, said there are a few options available to increase generating capacity.

“We are almost done with a study analyzing the options available. It looks like we have three main options,” he said. “One is to buy another coal burner, one is to buy another gas fire burner and another is to look into natural gas.”

In the draft of the improvement plan, Kom chose to go with the natural gas unit. The project is estimated to cost $62.5 million.

“This isn’t a worst-case projection, but it is an expensive one,” Kom said. “However, it is cheaper [compared] to the figures shown last year.”

Schainker added his opinion to the discussion.

“Maintaining our current capacity is key. If we do that, we only have to buy another 25 megawatts of power, instead of getting a whole new plant,” he said.