DELTA TOWNSHIP, Mich. — The Delta Township Water Resource Recovery Facility will soon be able to treat 8 million gallons of water a day instead of 6 million. The restoration of the more than 30 year old water treatment facility is set to start in the beginning of June.
And the cost are going to be a bit higher than initially expected.
“We're going to slightly bump it up to 8 million gallons per day,” said Rick Kane, the utility director of Delta Township. “We'll be adding additional treatment to get further cleaning capabilities. So, we're going to be discharging a much tighter controlled and cleaner water.”
The facility serves approximately 10,200 customers, including residential, commercial, and industrial sites. One of them will be the new General Motor's battery plant that is coming to Lansing. The township is currently discussing the design of the infrastructure which is needed to realize the water treatment of the GM plant.
“There is state help to allow to build a build the infrastructure,” Kane said. “We do have to extend our infrastructure onto their site to feed service to the battery facility.”
With inflation at its highest rate in decades, the cost of the project has changed, too.
“We expected the bids to come in and $52 million range,” Kane said. Instead, they ended up coming in at $74 million because of the “cost, inflation, and general concensus of the way the costs are running right now.”
According to Kane, it’s going to be $74 million for the first phase, "plus engineering costs, which puts it up into the $80 million range."
They are going to apply for state money while the project is ongoing and have estimated the total cost at $90 million to make sure all costs are covered.
For the customer, that means a 9 percent increase in rates, instead of the initially estimated 7.25 percent. At the moment, customers are looking at about a $3 monthly increase for the first year.
“We're still one of the lowest rates within this region,” Kane said.
He said the first phase should take about two and half years and that facility will look a lot different afterwards.
“We're going to put all new headworks in, which are pumps for screening…after that we're replacing or rebuilding our current biological systems,” he said.
The construction is estimated to take five to six years, but the facility will be fully functional throughout the process.
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