Goals identified for wastewater plant

Four primary goals have been identified in the latest one-year plan for wastewater treatment.

Fairfield City Administrator Jeff Clawson and wastewater superintendent Ellen Myers are collaborating on the development of one-year, three-year, five-year and 10-year plans.

During Saturday?s city council work session, Clawson reported engineering for the wastewater treatment facility?s sludge storage tank is 98 percent complete. The roughly $2 million project should be bid this year.

A backup generator also should be installed during the next fiscal year. Right now, Clawson said the plans are being tweaked because he believes the current $750,000 estimate is a little high for the project.

Clawson said he and Myers also are re-evaluating the wastewater treatment facility plan.

?We feel like a lot?s been lost over the last couple of years with turnover and changes, and we want to make sure everything?s moving the direction we feel it needs to be moving, that meet?s [Department of Natural Resources?] requirements,? Clawson said.

The final priority in the one-year plan is evaluation of the treatment plant?s electrical system.

Councilwoman Susan Silvers noted a facility plan had already been submitted to the DNR. She questioned how the DNR will treat a new plan.

?I believe that what they really want right now is a storage tank and redundant electricity, and what we do in the long-term to improve the plant, they?re going to agree with what we bring forward,? Myers said.

For the complete article, see the Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011, printed edition of The Fairfield Ledger.