waste water plant

The Waste Water Treatment plant was back in city council to discuss the Blending Project… again.

The discussion was to clear up any questions regarding the 200% budget increase, as well as discuss ways of potentially saving money.

The new area had to be altered for the utilities coming in and out of the new building, such as high voltage wires, overflow and the relocation of already buried wires.   The location had to be changed because of pipe interference and configuration, as well as the risks involved in the installation of chemical feed lines.

All of these changes also extended the timeline of the project from five months to 11 months.This brought the estimated price of the contract to $5.7 million.

There was also an addition to the project management cost due to the changes.

But the WWTP says these upgrades are necessary, or the city could have bigger problems than higher costs on their hands.

Parts of the current structure are fundamentally weak. Over the Last six years, WWTP told the council there have been 28 partial failures.

They can’t predict how much one of these failures will cost. There is also the risk of a catastrophic failure, which could potentially leave residents without water for at least four to five days.

There have been talks about re-tendering the price of the contractors. This delay in the reconstruction and tours of the plant it self could cause more failures. Re-tendering could also result in the two contractors retracting their estimates, or the prices going up.

At present, the lowest bid is  $5.7 million. The WWTP projected if water bills are increased by 10-15 dollars every year, they would be debt free by 2023.