Meeting Scheduled To Discuss Sewage Options For Gravette

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

— Because Gravette, like many other cities, is under mandate by the federal government to upgrade its wastewater treatment plant, options for solving the problem have been under consideration for several months.

The city’s engineering firm, McGoodwin, Williams and Yates, has been involved in a study to determine the most economical and feasible solution. Any solution will be expensive and must provide a long term solution, it is known.

Basically, the Gravette sewer plant must either upgrade to meet mandated phosphorus and ammonia levels in its discharge or a new sewer plant must be constructed. The other option would be to pipe the city’s sewage to another treatment plant.

This has resulted in a meeting which was to be held yesterday, Tuesday, between Gravette city officials, the city’s engineering firm and representatives from Decatur. A discussion was to be held concerning piping Gravette’s wastewater to Decatur for treatment at its newly constructed treatment facility.

Researching that and comparison with the other twooptions will be ongoing and it is not expected a final determination will occur until both cities explore the costs, the results and the ramifications of such a proposal.

Decatur’s new plant, it has been noted, is using only about half capacity and projecting the next 20-year growth of the two cities the plant would still be operating at 75% of capacity, James Boston, Decatur PublicWorks Director said.

The big issue is cost and considering all determining factors, including long range estimates, Boston said.

News, Pages 1 on 01/27/2010