BV moves ahead with $7.2 million dollar sewer improvements
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The Boyceville Village board gave its blessings to a plan to improve its wastewater collection and treatment facilities at their regular monthly meeting of October 10th.
A public hearing was held at 5 p.m. so citizens could have an input on the proposed project, but after Village President Lukas Montgomery asked three times if there were any comments from residents, none addressed the board about the proposed plan.
“The Wastewater Facility Plan recommends that the Village of Boyceville rehabilitate portions of the sanitary sewer system and make repairs and upgrades at the wastewater treatment facility to meet the future wastewater treatment needs of the Village,” so stated in the notice of public hearing.
Pat Morrow, the wastewater team leader with the engineering firm of MSA out of Rice Lake addressed the board and explained why the project is needed and its time line for planning, DNR permitting and financing and construction.
In the plan, Morrow noted that the existing system requires upgrades to reliably meet permit requirements. “Your equipment has aged and we need to look at it for the next 20 years,” Morrow told the board.
“The lagoon aeration system utilizes 1980’s era coarse bubble diffusers which are inefficient compared to the current state of technology. Furthermore, the blowers which supply aeration to the lagoons were installed in 1979 and 1988,” the report indicated.
The plan said that the Village’s collection system consists of approximately 46,500 feet of gravity sewer and 170 manholes of which about 30 percent are from the original 1958 installation and are in need of further investigation and possibly rehabilitation.
The report continued, “The three lift stations need pump replacement and various upgrades now or in the near future to increase reliability, ease of operation and safety.”
The report also noted that currently the village spends some $83,000 per year on chemicals for chemical phosphorus removal and that in the future that cost will increase, but the report noted that chemical treatment presents the lowest capital cost.
If the Village chooses to do all the proposed upgrades that are listed in the plan the total cost is estimated at $7,207,000 with the Village being eligible for a two million dollar “Principal Forgiveness plan plus a Community Block Development grant.
At present, residential customers pay $22.00 on average per month for sewer and if the Village completes all items in the plan that rate will increase to $51.00 per month, or $612.00 per year cost. Morrow explained that a survey of similarly sized communities the cost ranged from $65.00 to $992 per year.
The time line for the project is that by the end of this month a facility plan is submit to the DNR and plans and spec on the work must be into the DNR by July of 2023 with construction starting in April of 2024 and completed by July of 2025.
