Wastewater treatment facility options presented

NEW LONDON – The New London Board of Public Works/Sewer Utility Commission was informed at its Feb. 2 meeting that the deadline to construct a new wastewater treatment facility has been extended by two years to July 1, 2031.
At the meeting, Mike Gerbitz, senior process engineer, for Donohue & Associates, Inc., reminded the commission that the city now has a lower phosphorus limit that it must meet. This new limit was created by the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for the watershed that the city is located in.
“Your new nutrient mass limit, your portion of that budget, puts you in a position that at times you’d have to get to a very low limit, and you’re current (wastewater) plant would not be able to meet that,” Gerbitz said. “So, you need some technology, you need some improvements at your facility to meet that new limit.”
Many wastewater facilities in the state are facing the same issue, Gerbitz said.
He added that the city had previously been informed that it must comply with the new phosphorus limit by July 1, 2029. But after communicating with regulators, that deadline was extended to July 1, 2031.

“You have an aging facility,” Gerbitz said. “Much of the equipment there is at or exceeding, or certainly fast approaching its viable service life. And the plant’s been there awhile.”
In addition, Gerbitz said New London’s wastewater treatment facility is one of the most complex facilities in the state of Wisconsin.
Gerbitz said there are only two “practical strategies” available to the city to meet the new phosphorus limit. The first is a multi-discharger variance (MVD). This was set to expire in 2027, but that deadline has been extended to 2035.
“The way the MVD works is you essentially buy your way to compliance until the MVD expires,” Gerbitz said.
This option would buy the city more time to comply, he said.
The second practical option for the city would be to upgrade its wastewater treatment facility to add filtration.
Upgrade options previously presented to the commission were for $50 million and $66 million.
“We’ve got hundreds of decisions to make. Some of those decisions are going to kind of define where we are in that range,” Gerbitz said.
Funding options that were previously discussed included USDA funding, the Wisconsin Clean Water Fund, and selling revenue bonds. Gerbitz said the most favorable option would be a 30-year loan through the Wisconsin Clean Water Fund.
“You will be eligible for principal forgiveness,” Gerbitz said. “So, that’s essentially a grant. Free money of $2.1 million.”
No principal forgiveness grant money would be received by the city if the sale of revenue bonds were used to fund the facility upgrades.
Gerbitz said another funding option, congressionally directed spending, should be researched for funding upgrades.
“That is money directly in a bill in Washington (D.C.) for your project,” Gerbitz said.

Current location
Gerbitz said there are a plethora of options as to how the city could configure a new wastewater treatment facility at its existing location. He presented to the commission one of those options that would provide “the ideal configuration.”

“It will take a lot of sequencing to pull this off, to build a new facility where your existing one is,” Gerbitz said.
He added, “You can do anything if you have enough time and money.”
This option would include constructing a new administrative building on the site, keeping the yard waste area on site, and eliminating some structures from the site while adding new structures. This process would take at least four years to complete.
Gerbitz said there would be challenges to overcome for this type of upgrade, which could increase the risk and cost of the project. The challenges could also limit the number of companies who would bid on such a project.

New location

Another option would be constructing a brand-new wastewater treatment facility “immediately west of the Public Works building,” Gerbitz said.
By building at a new location, the challenges of building at the current site would be eliminated.
Building at a new site would cost around $6 million less than building on the current site, he added.
“Our recommendation would be to advance the design on the adjacent site,” Gerbitz said. “There’s more value in that.”
Even though that site provides the community with some recreational value, as the city’s sledding hill is located there, he said that recreational value could be replaced for less than it would cost to construct a new wastewater treatment facility at its current location.

Commission discussion
Ald. BaLynda Croy said she is concerned about the city spending money to fix things at the current wastewater treatment facility.
“We don’t have the time to really push this out any further,” Croy said. “The equipment is failing, has failed, is failing, and we’re spending money to fix equipment that we’re going to tear down. So, the sooner we get this done the better it is going to be for everybody.”
She also agreed that a new sledding hill could be constructed at a different location in the city.
New London Mayor Mark Herter said the city has recreational property north of the city as a potential location for a new sledding hill.

Ald. Robert Besaw added that an advantage of constructing the wastewater treatment facility at a new location would allow the city to continue to use the old facility if there were an issue with the new facility while converting operations to that facility.
New London City Administrator Chad Hoerth said the city has been “kicking the can down the road” for the past 30 years.
“Because we haven’t had a need to do anything, so we’ve just been updating slowly,” Hoerth said. “Well, if we would have updated to a newer plant 30 years ago, 20 years ago, we’d have been in a way different scenario.”
Committee Chairman John Hass said it’s not fiscally responsible to wait to construct a new facility.
If the city moved forward with the project now, Gerbitz said construction of a new facility would be concluded in 2030. He added that the first principal payment for the project would not be due until May 2031. That would allow the city to collect funds for the project through increased water and sewer rates for several years before beginning to pay for the facility.