Highland signs contract for sewage plant

RIVERSIDE — The Highland school board unanimously approved a contract with Spectra for a wastewater project Monday night, over two years after a DNR mandate to address “above-acceptable levels” of E. coli and ammonia in the school’s wastewater, and nearly a year after the district sought an extension waiting for supply prices to drop back down to six digits.

Superintendent Ken Crawford said contractors had until next summer to do the project, but planned to finish it before the start of the coming school year.

“We gave them until Aug. 15 of 2023, remember we did that so if they wanted to wait to buy materials when it was cheaper, they could do it next spring,” he said at a school board meeting Monday night. “They’ve chosen to do it now. They’ve got a lot of material coming as we speak … so I believe by the start of this school year, we should have it done.”

Crawford said he was confident the end was in sight for the project, which was tabled last summer after bids came in higher than the district could afford.

“We’re getting closer to the end of a very long saga,” he said. “I’ve looked back at our last three years of (agendas) and it’s been on there a long time, we’ve talked about this a long time.”

The final contract comes in at $1.1 million. Crawford said the district had saved up money over the years to make that price achievable.

“That money’s coming from our penny sales tax and from our PPEL (Plant and Physical Equipment Levy) account,” he said. “We’ve saved up $1 million in each of the accounts to pay for it … once we knew this project was going to be as big as it was, we started saving right away.”

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