DEWITT, Mich. — Southern Clinton County is throwing $15 million into the toilet...well, not exactly.
The Southern Clinton County Municipal Utility Authority in DeWitt is responsible for treating wastewater for the residents and businesses in the city of DeWitt, DeWitt Township, Bath Township and Watertown Township.
"Population around 38,000," Director of Operations Dan Gurski said.
That's approximately 2.8 million gallons of wastewater per day.
"We're planning to upgrade the facility to go up to possibly 6 million gallons, and that's for planned future growth within the four communities," Gurski said.
The facilities, which span across a campus, are original, built in 1980. The facility that collects and pumps all the sewage collected from the four municipalities has 43-year-old pumps that run 24/7. Gurski said everything in that facility will be redone from the pumps, to the motors, to the piping and electrical.
The tertiary filters, Gurski said, will also be updated.
"We're going away from the media bed filters to a cloth media filter. It's much more efficient, reduces our recirculating rate," Gurski said. "Right now, we recirculate between 300,000 and 500,000 gallons a day, and that's through the backwashing process, to remove the solids and we recirculate that to re-treat it."
Gurski said the new process will be only about 10% of that, about 30,000 to 50,000 gallons per day.
"So, that reduces cost, and increasing our treatment capacity," Gurski said.
The disinfection process currently used involves chlorine, followed by sulfur dioxide to remove the chlorine.
"The new facility will operate with UV," Gurski said.
The total project estimate is about $16.7 million.
"We did get principal forgiveness of 10%, which equals $1.6 million and some change," Gurski said.
That leaves about $15 million to be split amongst the four municipalities.
"Which is divided up based on a balance of their ownership value in our facility and their usage," Gurski said.
DeWitt City Administrator Dan Coss said the city owns about 13% of the plant.
"So, we'll be responsible for about 13% of the cost," Coss said. "Based on the estimates that we currently have, that will be about $2.1 million that will be our responsibility, and that will equate to about $21 per year per residential household."
Gurski said they will open bids in mid-January.
"Which will really define if the project moves forward," Gurski said. "We have to make sure it stays within project estimates, otherwise, we're going to have to have some tough decisions, and have some conversation about how we move forward."
If and when construction does begin, Gurski said it could take up to three years.
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