Engineer: City sewer revamp will cost millions

 

Last updated 9/28/2022 at 10:50am



The wastewater treatment plant that takes care of all the sewage from Grand Coulee and Electric City has been in operation continually since 1985, treating 127 gallons a minute on average.

The two cities have not grown out of it capacity-wise, but it’s “aging out” and needs an update, according to consulting engineering firm Gray and Osborne, which is working on a plan to update for the next 20 years.

“What the guys are largely running up against is that … some of the equipment is just no longer made,” Gray and Osborne Engineer Nancy Wetch told the city council last week.

Wetch said that’s not unusual. “Lots of cities get stuff off eBay,” she said.

“So what we’ve done is to identify each deficiency through the treatment plant,” she continued. “And now the next step in the process is to come up with a solution for each one of those deficiencies and develop a cost estimate.”

Wetch said the city is also analyzing needs in the collection system — the pipes that bring the fluid to the plant.

Already, they think some 1,900 feet of it along Midway Avenue needs replacing, as does another 1,600 feet on Martin Road. Another 10,000 feet of pipe are actually old clay lines installed in the 1930s and ’40s and will have to go.

On top of that, the plant runs on what Mayor Paul Townsend described as “a weird voltage.”

It’s not going to be cheap, “and that’s what makes everybody’s heart skip a beat, because this is an expensive endeavor for the city,” Wetch said, estimating it could come to $8 million to $10 million.

Any repairs will have to be done while the plant is running, the mayor noted. “No matter what we do, it has to keep operating while we’re while we’re tearing it apart and rebuilding it,” Townsend said.

The plant itself is jointly owned by Grand Coulee (63%) and Electric City (37%).

Vetch said the goal is to develop a prioritized list of needs in the next month, then figure out funding to do the work.

She said Grand Coulee will likely qualify for favorable financing rates through lending and granting agencies.

Townsend noted that Electric City’s higher median income level may make that look different, a factor agencies use to decide on grant eligibility.

Grand Coulee has a median household income of $ 38,594, Wetch said.

 

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