The Levelland City Council held a special meeting Wednesday to discuss the potential options for the new waste-water treatment plant that is needed in the near future.
In previous meetings, the council was presented with two base options of plants that would work for the city’s particular needs and land application.
Additionally, the council and the City of Levelland have issued notices of intent to issue certificates of obligation with a maximum amount of $20 million.
If the council decided to go with an option that exceeded the amount, the option of issuing an additional amount to cover the remaining cost could be an option or amending, redoing may be a future step if needed.
However, Hilltop Executive Jason Hughes who has guided and provided necessary information in that regard was not in attendance to answer questions for that situation if the occasion arose.
Currently, the city and council have kept a December 5, sale date for the bonds, which increases the urgency to select a plant option sooner than later.
The purpose of the special meeting was to hold a workshop to gain further in-depth detail on each option with an explanation and presentation of wo types of a third option.
Additionally, overall cost of each plant was given to the board to help them in making a decision for the next meeting held Monday. Daniel Albus with Parkhill Engineering has been the person in charge of the project and has been working to provide the best possible options for the board to choose from.
In the previous special meeting, Albus presented the current state of the city’s wastewater treatment plant and the proposed reconstruction or new construction and options to pay for the project.
Constructed in 1983 and completed in 1984, problems within the current plant include a non-functioning grit chamber for the better part of eight years.
The blowers that feed the air to the plant, only three out of five are functioning.
Albus referred to the blowers as the beating heart of the plant and said the blowers are well past their design life.
The blowers currently used see a 20-year design life, however, the plant has been using the blowers close to 40 years.
The transfers structure between the ponds is not functioning properly. Albus explained that the transfer structure allows workers to separate the flow and move the flow between the ponds.
He continued to say the flow is continuously going through the ponds and doesn’t allow staff to isolate flow and take down ponds if they needed to.
The line work including the aeration lines, pipelines, electrical line and electrical switch gears are out of their design life.
Out of the three ponds and one additional storage pond, Albus explained that sludge accumulation has begun to affect treatment capacity.
Albus and his group began to monitor the sludge accumulation in 2012 and has continued to be a problem.
“It has reached a point where most of your capacity in ponds two and three is sludge,” Albus previously stated. “You have about two to three feet of water when you’re supposed to have eleven.”
The pond liner for all ponds no longer meets the standard requirements. To remedy the problem, the ponds would need to be lined with 16-millimeter geomembrane liner of two feet of compacted clay. Both expensive options given the amount of accourage the ponds take up according to Albus.
With sludge being one of the biggest issues the plant is facing, it is already at the surface of the water in a few of the ponds, but the issue is when it is traveling to the top.
Albus explained that when the sludge makes its way to the surface it can become harder for the water to make its way to the surface.
A few months ago, Albus received a call from the chief operator of the plant saying he had water entering the blower building. Like Albus’s previous analogy, he treated the situation as if it were a heart attack.
Albus estimates that the current plant can operate for another four to five years. The city will be battling to keep the plant running smoothly.
With the first emergency fix, there are still nine more pipelines that could potentially fail.
With that, Albus brought two alternatives during the first special meeting Each option requires the refurbishment of the existing holding ponds and irrigation structure.
Option one includes the complete rehab of all the ponds and new headworks, entrance structure. With the option one, the amount of work and cost associated with refurbishing the ponds, scooping the sludge and adding new liners would have a capital cost of roughly $23.79 million after Albus brought current numbers to Wednesday’s meeting.
Option one would also have total cost of dealing with sludge yearly at $350,000 while the operations cost of the plant would be $475,000.
Option two would include a newly activated sludge process that utilizes the current holding pond which is the biggest of the four currently used and holds the least amount of sludge currently.
Albus suggested that using the holding pond would be the most effective solution due the low amount of sludge compared to ponds one, two and three. The reason for having less amount of sludge compared to three other ponds is it is the last pond to receive the flow.
Option two would include a new plant that would be classified as a mechanical wastewater treatment plant.
The major project components include the rehabilitation of the holding, storage pond. That includes the sludge removal and disposal and would be necessary for option one or two.
A new headworks facility would need to be built along with the addition of secondary treatment equipment. Two clarifiers would be installed, and the cost associated include the mechanisms and concrete needed.
A sludge pumping and dewatering system and disinfection system would me included. Additionally, electrical and controls for the emergency generator are added.
The probable cost for option two is roughly $19.3 million compared. The total projected cost of sludge removal yearly is roughly $42,160 and the total annual operation cost sits at $142,160.
Option two has the three ponds being capped with two feet of clay as a barrier and not being used anymore as the reserve pit is big enough to accommodate the mechanical plant. Albus assured the council that the capping the sludge with clay has not had any negative effects on the ground water resources in other applications in Texas as it has been a common practice to handle the sludge.
The sludge in the reserve pond will have to be dumped and relined for the use in the mechanical plant. However, the amount of sludge in the pond is nowhere near the substantial amount that would have had to be dumped from all three ponds if they were used.
For option three, there are two variations of the type that Albus feels could be accepted by the TCEQ board. Both options are considered to be a pond-in-pond plant that is more hands off when it comes to operations and leans more into mother nature handling the majority of the work.
A less common option as the examples of towns that have a pond-in-pond system are smaller who use less water.
The first option two ponds parallel to each other with a smaller pond within each. Albus says that is where 80 percent of the work will be done in those two ponds. For size, the main ponds will be 12 acres long while two additional ponds would be adjacent from with each of them being parallel and only six acres long.
Those two ponds serve as an extra step to polish the affluent essentially that is required by TCEQ. They would be slightly shallower than the two main ponds. Additionally, the existing holding pond would be reused and updated with the necessary liners as well as a new pump station.
For this option, the addition of 65 acres would be needed and could be achieved but that would affect the amount of required open land that the city must have unused.
For the second variation of option three, a technical advisor from Texas Tech University was consulted on this specific option and has a different sizing view on the ponds as he prefers a deeper pond compared to TCEQ.
Instead of the main two parallel ponds being 12 acres they would be 11 acres and slightly deeper. This option would reduce land application needed for the dispersal of the water.
For the differences between the two variations, Albus says it is the approach, but the overall costs are similar.
For the first variation of option three, the capital costs would be roughly $22.2 million while the sludge production would be $2,700 and the operation costs would be $20,200.
The second variation of option three has a capital cost of $25.1 million with a sludge production cost of $2,700 and an operation cost of $20,200.
The council will be holding a regular meeting Monday at 6 p.m. to settle on a plant option to move forward with their regular timeline to sell certificates of obligation.