MONROE — As the city eyes future growth in both residential and commercial development, officials must contend with a wastewater treatment plant that routinely nears or exceeds its current capacity.
That was the message from the city’s engineering firm, Fehr-Graham, during the Feb. 5 common council meeting, during which several alternatives for the plant’s future expansion were discussed.
To fully modernize and expand the plant, the city could be looking at a $47 million price tag, officials were told, which includes interest on a state-backed loan. According to Fehr-Graham’s Mike Kennison, the most recent upgrade to the plant occurred in 2015, when major pumping and other processes improvements were completed.
“It feels like we just got done with one (an upgrade) years ago,” he said.
But rather than markedly expand capacity, those 2015 changes largely improved the plant’s ability to treat waste to state Department of Natural Resources standards. In a memo from city staff to the common council, Fehr-Graham engineers detailed the scope of the problem using an industry standard ‘Basis of Design’ or BOD:
“In general, once the influent BOD reaches 90 percent of capacity, the WDNR recommends a municipality begin the facilities planning process for the expansion of the WWTP. The WWTP’s current annual average design capacity for BOD is 10,000 PPD. The WWTP exceeded the 90 percent of BOD design in 2019, was at 88 percent of design in 2020, and exceeded 111 percent of the design in 2021.”
The bottom line, according to the memo, is that “the City needs to begin the facilities planning process to pursue the expansion of the WWTP to meet the current demands as well as future growth.”
Funding for the project would likely come from a DNR loan program, with the money generated to repay the loan from increases in sewer bills to residential and commercial customers over a certain time.
“We can’t handle (wastewater) that is coming to us,” Kennison said, emphasizing the need to add capacity to accommodate future growth.
The council will continue to review the study and consider it for final approval for submittal to the DNR at its Feb. 20 meeting.
In another matter, the common council also agreed to commission Fehr-Graham to design a replacement for the Reese lift station at 30th Street and 11th Ave. The station serves approximately 75 homes in the area, official said. The current station handles about 11,000 gallons of water per day and lacks a backup power supply.
The design phase of the lift station work is slated to cost $63,900. The funding has already been allocated in 2021/2022 general obligation bond issue, according to officials.