Bonding For Water Treatment Plant Upgrade Hearing Monday

Monday night the Water Pollution Control Authority will hold a public hearing on the proposed bonding package on phase one of the waste water treatment plant upgrade.

The Hour reports:

Clean Water Fund dollars would pay for $38.8 million of Phase One. Capital budget dollars would cover the remaining $6.2 million, according to Harold F. Alvord, the city’s director of public works.

“We have (a consultant) working right now on the design. We have to have all our stuff in order before we even think about putting a bid package on the street,” Alvord said. Phase One “is the headworks building. The entire project is a three-phase project, but we can’t do Phase Two, which is the improvement nitrogen removal, without Phase One.”

The public hearing on the $45-million bond resolution is scheduled for Monday at 5:30 p.m. in Room 231 of City Hall, 125 East Ave.

The overhaul is intended to further modernize the plant off South Smith Street and enable it to remove more nitrogen from effluent. The upgrade would mark the first major work on the plant since a $63-million overhaul in the late 1990s.

In June, Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc., the city’s consultant on the overhaul, outlined to WPCA members a number of options for the project.

Replacement of the plant headworks, where influent is screened, is the same under the five upgrade alternatives. Work on the nitrogen treatment system varies, with the two least-expensive options being “essentially modifications” to the existing system, according to the consultant.

The last overhaul left the city earning — at least until last year — money through the state’s nitrogen credit trading program.

According to Fred Wilms, a WPCA member and chairman of the city’s Board of Estimate and Taxation, the new plant upgrade is needed for several reasons.

“It’s vital that we upgrade the treatment plant so that we’re sending less pollution into Long Island Sound,” Wilms said. And, “We expect that the state is going to clamp down and require further nitrogen reduction. Certainly, if we’re ahead of the curve, if we’re discharging less nitrogen than other towns, that puts us in
an advantageous position financially.”

The $45-million bond issuance resolution re-quires approval from the WPCA, the Board of Estimate, the Common Council’s Finance and Claims Committee, and ultimately the full council, according to Alvord.

source: The Hour, Hearing for wastewater project bonding scheduled, By ROBERT KOCH, October 19, 2008