City officials explain need for plant upgrade

Nevada Daily Mail

August 7 is election day and the only local item on the ballot will be the approval of $9.8 million in sewer revenue bonds to upgrade Nevada's waste water treatment plant and sanitary sewers. Over the next two weeks, the Nevada Daily Mail will try to answer as many questions as possible about this issue and to keep a running list of questions and answers on the newspaper's Website: www.nevadadailymail.com.

Why does the city's sewer treatment plant and sewer lines need upgrading?

There are several reasons the city's sewer system needs to be upgraded.

The city's waste water treatment plant is 30 years old and much of the equipment in the plant is obsolete and repair parts are not available. They have had to cannibalize equipment that is not used to repair other essential equipment.

Roger Beach, waste water treatment supervisor, said that he recently found out that repair parts are no longer available for some of the equipment that is only 15 years old.

Most of the city's sewer mains are 40 to 50 years old and are built with sections of clay tile. Over the years many of these tiles have been damaged and have developed leaks.

"When we receive heavy rain, water infiltrates the lines and overloads the capacity of the treatment plant. When this happens the treatment plant discharges untreated sewage into Little Drywood Creek," which puts the city in violation of its operating permit. It also causes the sewers to back-up and gush out of manholes to run down streets and across yards, Beach said.

Currently, that is the only time the city's treatment plant is in violation of its permit requirements; however, if the city does not correct this problem, at some point the state can impose fines on the city and even prohibit any new connections to the sewer system.

The city is also anticipating a change in the state's regulations, that will require the city to disinfect the effluent discharged from the treatment plant.

Beach has said that he expects the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, which oversees discharges into the states waterways, to require most Missouri streams, including Little Drywood Creek where Nevada's water is discharged, to be safe for whole body contact. That will require Nevada to disinfect the effluent discharged from the treatment plant. The current plant is unable to do this.

Bill McGuire, city manager, has said that new treatment plant will be more industry friendly than the current plant.

All local industries are and will continue to be required by the Environmental Protection Agency to pre-treat their sewage; however, because of the age and condition of Nevada's wastewater treatment plant the industries must meet more stringent requirements.

Ken Loomer, Precision Aero Services president, recently said that if he had known that Nevada's waste water treatment plant could not handle industrial sewage, he probably would not have located his company here. Every other town he had been to was able to handle industrial sewage, he indicated.