HUDSON, MI – The City of Hudson will hold a ribbon-cutting and open house for the city’s $5 million wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) improvement project on Friday, Oct. 4, at 11 a.m.
The public is invited to the event at the WWTP, which will include tours and brief speeches by city officials and the engineering firm which provided design and construction engineering – Fleis & VandenBrink (F&V) of Kalamazoo.
“This project continues our years’ long focus on improving the infrastructure here in town,” said Steve Hartsel, Hudson’s city manager. “This project stretches back about six years so it’s nice to have it wrapped up successfully.”
Major improvements include a new influent lift station, an oxidation ditch, where wastewater is biologically treated, and an ultraviolet (UV) disinfection process. The oxidation ditch is 84 feet long, 60 feet wide and 15 feet high.
“It’s been an honor to work with the dedicated city staff through the design and construction of the project, and now to celebrate this milestone,” said David C. Harvey, P.E., F&V’s project manager. “The project addressed significant needs within the wastewater system.
“The oxidation ditch uses real-time monitoring of the process to maximize energy efficiency and the ultraviolet disinfection process is a major improvement. It is much safer to use than the chlorine gas system which it replaces.”
“This is the largest upgrade in nearly 30 years,” Hartsel noted. “And it increases the reliability of this system for all of our residents.”
The facility along Mechanic Street on the southeast side of Hudson, which was last updated in 1987, was struggling to maintain an acceptable level of performance. The plant’s daily capacity for treating wastewater is 420,000 gallons, however, some rain events pushed the plant to its limits.
The city hired F&V to research and develop options to bring the plant’s capabilities up to current standards.
Rehabilitating the wastewater and sewer network was one of several options that ranged from doing nothing to building a new $14.3 million WWTP. F&V recommended maintaining the plant, making various small repairs, and focusing on improvements to the inflow and infiltration parts of the plant.
“I’m very happy to see the project completed,” Camp said. “And I sing praises for F&V.
“I’m really glad that we have an engineering firm that came up with a solution to our problem that works.”
“A lot of the project stems from the fact that we were beginning to get a fair amount of groundwater and rainwater into our sewage collection system,” Hartsel said. “We made improvements on the piping that leads to the wastewater plant as well as this giant, new oxidation ditch and the UV disinfection system which helps me to sleep better at night.”
The improvements were paid through a low interest loan from the State Revolving Loan (SRF) program, an SRF Green Project Reserve principal forgiveness award of $150,000 and user fee rate increases administered through the Michigan Department of Environment Quality, now Environment Great Lakes & Energy (EGLE).
“I’ve been the mayor for five years now and this is the biggest, most important project we needed to do,” Camp said. “No one is happy to pay more for something, but this is something we had to do.”
The city also received two separate grants from MDEQ for underground inspections and smoke testing.
Hartsel is hoping community residents, including students, will come out to tour the WWTP.
“I would like kids to come and see our plant and learn at a young age just how important wastewater treatment is to their lives,” Hartsel said. “Wastewater treatment is taken for granted, largely because it’s an out-of-sight, out-of-mind thing.
“I’d really love to show people face-to-face what the plant looks like and what it does for them.”
In addition to tours, a WWTP power point presentation will be shown and refreshments and donuts will be served at the event.
*Text in this article courtesy of a press release*
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