New Lime Springs council surprised with cost of WWTP

LIME SPRINGS - Brian Malm and Katie Sterk of Bolton & Menk, the town’s engineering company, updated the new City Council on costs of upcoming projects.

 

Water Tower

This is one of the less expensive projects on the city’s radar, but it still comes in at a whopping $350,000-400,000, members learned at the March 3 meeting.

The engineers looked over the Lime Springs water tower and found some minor and major issues.

Work was done on the interior in 2012. Malm said, “This is in reasonably good shape. There are just a few spot repairs, which probably happened when the water level rose and fell, and ice beat against the sides.” There are also some structural repairs needed.

The more expensive repairs are to the outside. “The paint has adhesion problems.” Malm explained the paint is peeling and exposing some lead-based paint. It will have to be sand blasted and recoated.

 

Culvert on East Merrill

One of the projects the council has been kicking down the road is the culvert between Cheryl Davis’ and council person Kris McNamara’s houses.

Bolton & Menk performed a condition assessment on Feb. 5, 2020. The structure has “severe deterioration.”

Jacob Shaw, Professional Structural Engineer, stated in a letter, “Due to the advanced deterioration and limited information about the original construction, no load rating analysis was completed. It is our opinion that the structure has exceeded the useful service life and should be replaced within two years. We recommend load posting the culvert for five tons for all vehicles until the structure can be replaced.”

The poor condition of that culvert makes the one on North Miller St. by J.J. Miller’s house the better of the two bridges/culverts, but it can’t hold the tonnage of machinery either.

 

‘Yes Elizabeth, 

it’s the big one’

In a nod to Fred Sanford, council members heard a figure that could give them a heart attack . . . $14 million. That is the very high end of building a new mechanical wastewater treatment facility.

Council members discovered the wastewater plant has two major issues: Ammonia Nitrogen and E. coli. Bolton & Menk offered four alternatives to solve one or both those problems.

1. Rehabilitate the existing lagoon. This includes replacing the aeration system and making repairs, along with updating some systems and will cost $600,000-800,000. 

2. Take care of #1 and add disinfection. This would take care of the E. coli limits with ultraviolet disinfection system, but will not take care of the ammonia nitrogen.

This alternative would cost $1.3-1.6 million.

3. Take care of #1 and #2, plus add ammonia removal. Doing this would meet the requirements of the DNR and cost a paltry $3.9-4.8 million.

4. Construct a new mechanical treatment facility. This will cost about $11.5-14 million. 

There are currently 238 households in Lime Springs. The average sewer cost per month for each alternative would be: 

1. $37.11

2. $57.77

3. $120.10

4. $272.41

Those figures do not include water charges or garbage.

Malm said, “If you don’t do #3, the regulation does not go away. If you go with #3, we can meet with funding agencies and find some state or federal grants.”

An added expense that would possibly benefit the city is to add infrastructure, such as fixing old pipes, which in turn would require fixing the roads. More grants may be available for the larger project.

 

What is the timeline?

Malm explained the process the City has been through to get to this spot.

• Aug. 1, 2016: Annual progress report due

• Aug. 1, 2017: Alternatives report due

• July 2018: City approved BMI proposal.

• Aug. 1, 2018: Annual progress report due

• Aug. 1, 2019: Submit Alternatives Implementation Compliance Plan. (Received notice the DCA was approved)

 

 Other information

Malm noted construction costs go up 3-5% every year, which means the project gets more and more expensive the longer the issue is kicked down the road.

It was mentioned that some of the technology has changed how a wastewater plant can run. Since 2015 technology has made it less expensive. Technology may improve in the future, but it is unknown if it will.

Sterk said, “Lime Springs is above the curve. All small towns in the state have the same problems. You are already working on this.”

Two-year council member Kris Kraft said, “As a new council, we can’t give an answer now.” 

Malm agreed, “You’ve got time.” 

And it seems much of that time will have to be spent looking for a suitable option for meeting DNR regulations.