Wastewater plant receives funding for consolidation
Standing on top of a large silo-like structure at Iowa City's South Wastewater Treatment Plant, Dave Elias, the superintendent of the city's Wastewater and Landfill Division, stared across the 53-acre plot of land.
Intricate mazes of pipes and pools filled with water dotted the area among farmland on Napoleon Street.
"You get a pretty good view from up here," Elias said, his eyes covered from the sun by a baseball cap.
The plant, which cleans roughly 8 million gallons of water per month, will be responsible for all of the city's wastewater by 2014, approximately 12 million gallons per month. The flood of 2008 damaged the city's other treatment plant, located on South Clinton Street, which already had structural defects, giving officials a reason to close the facility.
In mid-August, the city got a $2 million boost from the state's infrastructure initiative, I-JOBS, created to recoup losses caused by the flood and funded by the state's gaming revenues.
Thursday, officials from entities around the state met with the I-JOBS board to discuss the second round of funding, as well as to see if leftover money from other projects was available for distribution.
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Though no additional Iowa City projects received funding this round, Rick Fosse, Iowa City's public-works director, said a small amount of leftover money was made available and will go toward the plant consolidation.
In order to accommodate the additional water, construction crews will have to modify the south plant, a job that will include expanding pipes, basins, renewing technology, and increasing energy efficiency. Elias said city officials will spend the next two years completing engineering plans for the for the $46 million project.
"It's obviously a utility everyone uses," said Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville. "It was directly related to something caused by the flood. It creates decent construction jobs. All the criteria it does well on."
And with the money, the city is less than $11.5 million short of its $78.5 million funding goal for flood mitigation, which includes three main projects: wastewater plant consolidation, raising Dubuque Street, and reconstruction of the Park Road bridge.
"We're pretty much through the recovery phase," said Fosse. "We're into the mitigation phase. We do feel good about the funding package we've been able to assemble."
For now, the south plant will continue to operate as usual. The plant, the city government's biggest energy consumer, carries water through a complex cleansing process.
Elias hopes the new plant will include increased treatment safety, energy efficiency, and technology.
The plant is staffed 10 hours a day, and computers run the plant during the night.
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