WATER TREATMENT PLANT DESIGN FUNDING ON HOLD

Six weeks after recommending an appropriation of nearly $700,000 for engineering design work on the town’s 38-year-old Centennial Water Treatment Plant, the Finance Committee reversed itself and has scheduled a public forum for September 23 to discuss the issue.

As reported in the Indy, at its July 23, 2019 meeting, the Finance Committee approved an appropriation of $692,000 for design, permitting and bidding of the Centennial plant after only six minutes of discussion. The construction is currently estimated to cost approximately $11 million.  

At the September 5 meeting, Finance Committee Chair Andy Steinberg said that a number of questions about the plant had come up following their vote, and that they needed to take a closer look at not just the $692,000 for the design work, but also the total project cost. 

A study in 2010 by Tighe & Bond estimated the cost for upgrades to the Centennial plant at $3,165,000, which, according to the Department of Public Works (DPW) Superintendent Guilford Mooring, was “to replace what was already there.” An additional amount of $1,720,000 was estimated for sewer work that has now been completed. 

Since that time, however, water regulations have become more stringent, and more advanced technologies are required to safely process the water coming from the Hill and Hawley reservoirs in Pelham, Mooring said.

A 2015 study by Tata & Howard (T&H) revised the 2010 recommendations to use a newer plant process (Dissolved Air Flotation or DAF), which was successfully tested by the DPW and is now the recommended technology for a replacement Centennial plant, in combination with a “Roberts” filtration system. 

In 2017, T&H did an “Alternate Water Supply” study and compared the cost of the Centennial ‘priority’ work from the 2010 report to that of the 2015 report and upgraded the construction costs to 2016. Mooring reported the total estimate at that time was $7.44 million.

Now, however, Mooring is proposing a complete replacement of the Centennial plant. According to a proposal memo obtained by the Indy that was sent from T&H to Mooring on June 20, 2019, the total estimated project cost is $11,577,000, including the cost of design, permitting and bidding. 

When Steinberg asked about the significant cost increase, Mooring said “two years ago we used ballpark figures to come up with the numbers. What you have now is a much more thoroughly fleshed-out project.” Mooring noted that the existing building is too small to fit all of the new equipment, and also that the plant was hit by lightning last year, causing significant damage.

Councilor Cathy Schoen asked for, and Mooring agreed to provide, an estimate of the impact to water rates of the full construction cost, which Mooring said would begin in 4 years if they stay on schedule. (Money for both the design work and overall plant replacement will come from the Water Enterprise fund, which is separate from the town’s operating budget and is supported by water rates.)

Councilor Dorothy Pam questioned why the engineering design cost seemed so high. Mooring responded that engineering is creeping up to 20% of project cost. “It’s not really that high,” he said, noting that this is an industrial building and that the design is for a complicated process with pipes, pumps, motors, air compressors, controllers, etc. No benchmarks from similar projects were provided to the Finance Committee.

When asked by Pam “what happens if we don’t do this?” Mooring replied that since the plant has been taken offline, it is in “Stand By” status with the Department of Environmental Protection. “We have five years to finish a design and begin construction or else the facility goes into an ‘uncertified’ category, where if we want to bring it back, we’d have to go through the permitting process again,” he said. “No one really knows how that would go. We may not get permission to have a plant to produce 1.5 million gallons of water per day. It may be smaller and may have constraints on how we can operate.”

The Finance Committee voted unanimously to suspend the previous vote of approval. The topic was presented to the full Town Council on September 9th and the Water Supply Protection Committee will discuss the topic on September 12. A public forum will be held during the September 23rd Town Council meeting and the Finance Committee is expected to vote again on September 24th. Finally, it will come back to the Council for a vote to appropriate the funds for the design work on October 7th.