Colton Niblett, a project manager with Garver, an engineering, planning and environmental services firm, came to the August city council meeting to provide an update on the planned drinking water treatment plant as well as the sewer treatment plant. Niblett said the engineering report on the sewer project has been submitted to the Department of Environmental Quality in July and was under review. That report is for the new portion of the plant. The previously purchased dewatering boxes have been installed and are working as designed. The grant that purchased the items has been completed and payment to the city has been made.
The drinking water treatment plant is at the 30% detail planning stage and those drawings will be presented in October, Niblett said. The entire project will be shovel ready in June and will go out to bid at that time.
That plant will be an ion exchange system. The other option, reverse osmosis, is more costly and produces more waste than ion exchange. Originally planned for construction near the airport, expansion concerns eliminated that possibility, and the plant will be constructed in town instead, at the site of the existing street and alley and light and water department offices on Burford Street. It was deemed the most affordable location, Niblett said.
The two construction projects will have aligned construction schedules. That was a planned coincidence, in the hopes that two projects at the same time in the same place would draw in more contractors to bid, hopeful they could secure work on both projects.
The sewer treatment additions and improvements will be shovel ready in late spring 2024 and ready to go out to bid at that time.
The two projects in combination will cost approximately $15 million. The cost is being met by a loan from the Oklahoma Water Resources Board to the city.