City of Midwest City

The City of Midwest City Council recently voted to begin the design phase for refurbishing their Wastewater Treatment Plant. The existing structures and technology has been in service since 1982 and is in need of repair.

According to city officials, the design phase of the project will take about 6 months to complete. The city has awarded the now completed study phase, design phase and the engineering phase to Black & Veatch, a leading worldwide environmental consulting firm who specializes in infrastructure development of water / wastewater technology. The total cost of the three phase engineering process is not to exceed $3.74 million.

According to William Janacek, Environmental Services Director for the City, the current treatment plant was originally built in 1963 and underwent its most recent expansions in 1982 and 1989. “For the past several years, our employees have done a great job of extending the life of the plant, but, now key components of the facility are breaking down on a daily basis,” Janacek said.

Janacek continued that “the physical plant is suffering from age and normal wear and tear and keeping all components of the plant operational is a daily challenge mainly due to the fact that replacement parts are extremely hard to find or not available at all.” “This plant has out lived its useful life,” Janacek added.

Although the actual cost of renovating the wastewater treatment facility is unknown at this time, estimates run from $30 - $45 million, perhaps even higher, according to City Manager, J. Guy Henson. “We are in the process of getting actual costs so we will know exactly what we are dealing with,” he said.

Janacek said the renovated plant will help the city in a number of ways: it will be environmentally friendly and efficient and will lower the operational cost. “It is anticipated that we will include a co-mingled composting structure to enable the composting of grass clippings, and wood chips, after they are mixed with bio-solids”. “In other words, the new plant will be a much greener facility than what we now have,” he added.

When asked what will happen if the city is unable to refurbish the treatment plant for any reason, Janacek stated “at the current rate of failures at the plant, we will eventually find ourselves in violation of our permitted discharge limits which could lead to fines being issued by The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), which is under the watchful eye of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

“It is very important that we find a way to financially move forward with the construction phase of this plant,” Janacek said. “If we don’t, not only will we be in violation, but, the plant is under so much stress that it may not last much longer. Also, the quality of our discharge could be compromised causing detrimental conditions to the ecosystem downstream.”

Staff, Mayor and Councilmen is currently considering various forms of funding to use in the refurbishing of the existing facility. According to Henson, several options are under consideration. Those include: Federal and State grants; city sales tax increase; rate increase on sewer; GO Bond election or a combination of them.

“Our goal is to be able to refurbish the treatment plant while considering the least economic effect on our residents,” Henson stated.

Officials say that the building phase of the project will probably begin in January 2012.