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(ARCHIVE PHOTO | THE GRAHAM LEADER) City Manager Eric Garretty discusses portions of the wastewater treatment plant to the Graham City Council and community watching their meeting Thursday, Jan. 23. The city approved to hire Freese and Nichols as engineers to plan improvements at the facility.
The Graham City Council is taking the next steps to prepare for the future as it looks to address concerns regarding its aging wastewater treatment plant. This week the council approved a service agreement with Freese and Nichols for engineering services.
The council approved a $354,800 agreement Thursday, March 13 with the engineering firm to update the city’s 2013 wastewater master plan and perform preliminary design on proposed renovations to the wastewater treatment plant.
“This professional services agreement is the next step in the development of our design concept for the substantial renovation of the city's wastewater treatment facility,” City Manager Eric Garretty said. “This agreement is designed to produce an update to our Wastewater Master Plan, provide rehabilitation alternatives and provide cost estimates for each alternative.”
The city’s 2.1 million gallon per day wastewater treatment plant was originally constructed in 1978 and has not had major improvements since 1993. The goal of the preliminary design and costs for the improvements is for the city to be able to provide reliable service for the next 15 years.
The engineering group will conduct six meetings with the city to review results from their initial scope and will collect data from the city such as previous master plans, city comprehensive plans and historical data for the past five years from the treatment plant.
Up to two funding opportunities for projects identified in the report will be presented. The engineering group will also develop presentation materials for city council meetings and attend two meetings.
The city council Thursday, Jan. 23 approved Freese and Nichols to produce a new Wastewater Master Plan and conduct predesign services for a proposed project to rehabilitate the wastewater treatment plant.
“We're beginning what will probably be a four-year journey, and that is to develop a wastewater plan that will make sure that the needs of the community when it comes to wastewater are met for the next 20 to 30 years,” Garretty said in January. “We're (also) doing an update to our currently failing infrastructure at the wastewater treatment facility.”
The city council established an Engineering Provider Evaluation and Selection Committee during their meeting Thursday, Dec. 19. That committee recommended Freese and Nichols as the most qualified proposer over Jacob and Martin, Kimley-Horn and Parkhill.
The city set three project objectives that they are looking to achieve if they have the funding, which were presented to the council by the city manager.
“We're going to update and revise the city's current wastewater treatment master plan to reflect plan improvements under the rehabilitation project at a minimum, rehabilitate the entire plant, construct new infrastructure for plant resilience and create storage capacity for reuse water,” Garretty said in January.
The estimated time project timeline is predesign taking four to six months, debt acquisition taking around four months, permitting taking around three months and a significant period for construction.
“I'm estimating construction will take anywhere from 18 to 24 months, and certification will take one month,” Garretty said in January. “That's 45 to 50 months from the date you take the action to get the engineers working on it.”
Council Member Jack Little wanted to know if there was any way the process could be completed by city staff so they would not have to spend over $350,000.
“Randall (Dawson) is the public works director but Randall is not an engineer that is skilled in wastewater treatment plant redesign,” Garretty said. “The other thing is that we talked about is this is going to have a pretty hefty price tag on it. I’m thinking maybe $15 million-plus. We at least want to keep open the possibility of being able to apply for grant monies.”
Garretty said what is required to apply for grants is to update the city’s Wastewater Master Plan and have a design and a probable cost estimate.
“This money won’t be wasted. Like I said, we will have some of the design elements and that will give us a leg up,” he said.
The city manager said the engineers could come back with a probable cost estimate that is outside the scope of what the city can afford, but they will not know until this process is completed.
