Modified wastewater treatment plan could result in huge savings to city

GRAVETTE — A brief progress update on Gravette’s wastewater treatment facility project was presented to the Gravette City Council Thursday evening by Mayor Byron Warren.

Warren reported he, along with council member JimmyDenver, treatment plant operator Larry Buffer and engineer Joe Tarvin, met recently with state officials in Little Rock regarding the project.

Through changes made in the operation of Gravette’s current system, including discharging from the lagoon system on a daily basis, the city is now meeting discharge limits required by the state, Warren said.

This includes both phosphorus and nitrite discharge limits. The mayor added that no testing for nitrites had been conducted until very recently.

Engineer Tarvin, who has been retained by the city to solve the problem and who originally designed the plant in the early 1980s, has indicated that, with some modification and continuing the changes in operational procedures, the system could possibly be capable of meeting state mandates.

Warren indicated that since there were no earlier testing figures, and because of results of the current tests, the state may allow the city to have an additional six-month test period.

A response from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality is expected soon, Warren added.

If test results from the requested six-month additional tests prove favorable, the possibility could result in substantial savings to the city.

Gravette has been under mandate to meet state discharge limits which heretofore would have required expenditures of an estimated $5 to $6 million and would have required building a new plant or transporting effluent to Decatur.