ONTARIO — Ontario City Council’s utilities committee has authorized early steps toward building the city’s own wastewater treatment plant.
The committee of three, led by at-large councilman Ken Earhart, unanimously voted Wednesday to allow Mayor Randy Hutchinson and Service-Safety Director Jeff Wilson to continue appropriate planning for the potential plant.
“I think moving forward is the best step, whatever that next step needs to be. I think we need to pursue that,” Earhart said.
A recent cost analysis, performed by the Poggemeyer Design Group of Bowling Green, found Ontario would likely save between $305,602 and $841,241 per year by 2026 by building its own wastewater treatment plant, instead of continuing a 30-year contract with the City of Mansfield.
It appears Ontario would pay $2.4 million to $2.6 million per year with its own wastewater treatment plant, while it would pay $2.9 million to $3.3 million per year for Mansfield to continue providing its service.
On Jan. 1, Ontario’s rates for wastewater treatment service through Mansfield rose by 10 percent. That increase will be incrementally passed onto residents in 2019. And in 2018, rates increased by 18 percent.
“I’ve been a big proponent of the project forever. I kind of wish we would have built it when we said it was discussed how many years ago — 2003,” said 3rd Ward Councilman Mark Weidemyre. “If you look at the numbers, we’re there. We’re absolutely there, it only makes sense.”
Wilson said he wasn’t initially “too keen” on the idea, but after realizing that the project has been discussed for more than a decade, it became more favorable, in his opinion, to move forward.
“Here we are 16 years later, so if we don’t do this when its right here in front of us, 16 years from now, we’ll be having this same conversation,” Wilson said.
Concerns he brought forward were that estimates from Poggemeyer were based on zero and low interest rates. A council member said the amount available via grants is also still unknown.
At this point, the project is in its earliest steps. Hutchinson requested to add funds in the 2019 budget for engineering work, and Wilson estimated the project would take three to five years to complete.
Council hasn’t settled on a location yet, but three were proposed by Poggemeyer, Wilson said.
The option recommended by the Poggemeyer Design Group would cost a total of $38.5 million, according to Poggemeyer’s presentation. The cost is based on an oxidation ditch as the treatment process at $31.2 million, a plant at an estimated $6.8 million for the estimated sanitary sewer improvements and other miscellaneous costs. The city hopes to cover the expense with grants and other financing.
Another treatment process option is a sequence batch reactor (SBR), costing approximately $32.6 million, which is more expensive than the oxidation ditch treatment. Sanitary improvements at the most affordable site would cost $6 million and would be $12 million at the most expensive.
The type of treatment process and the site locations are two separate considerations. The most expensive option would be to use an SBR at the $12 million site. The least expensive would be to use an oxidation ditch at the $6 million site.
Wilson has called two of the site options “feasible.”
“I think the analysis that Poggemeyer put together was spot on. I think their numbers are legit,” Earhart said, adding he’d still like to connect with a few municipalities that have previously worked with the group before getting too far into the project.
