At its Sept. 1 session, Durango City Council decided to evaluate a new wastewater treatment plant on a private, downriver site before the high bridge. I commend the councilors for this decision. Now the important question is the basis selected for this study. We all recognize that the basis selected determines the outcome.
The city should develop two cases in addition to the Santa Rita plant rebuild:
1. A plant configuration desired by the Utilities Department.
2. A reduced-cost case to partially offset the increased costs with developing a new site.
It will cost in the ballpark of $8 million to get the sewage to the site based on the consulting firm Mulhern’s recently completed study, plus the costs of land, permitting and removing the Santa Rita plant. So we need a case that looks for savings.
The analogy I would use is a couple on a budget buying their first house. They’ll have to forgo the stainless steel appliances, the granite counter tops, the fancy bathroom tile, the really big lot, etc. But they will have a functional, livable house. The other things will come later.
Here are some possibilities for cost savings:
The new plant should be sized to handle 3.3 million gallons per day, 7,825 pounds per day with the purity measures mentioned Sept. 1.
Postpone the Class A Biosolids investment. That’s not being put into the Phase 1 rebuild of Santa Rita approved by the council, and it doesn’t need to be put into a new plant Day 1. Other Western Slope Colorado plants haven’t moved up to Class A yet.
The proposed office and lab space is 5,000 square feet. Can this be cut back? The planning basis for Glenwood’s sewer plant called for 3,000 square feet of office and lab space.
Retaining the primary clarifiers for emergency storage at Santa Rita should no longer be necessary with gravity flow in redundant pipes to the site, resulting in more park land available at Santa Rita.
One of the study tasks should be to look for ways to defer and reduce investment without sacrificing operability.
Other considerations that need to be included in the study are:
The contingencies – or allowance for uncertainties – should be lower for a new plant than for rebuilding Santa Rita.
Consistent schedules should be developed for both rebuilding and new construction. A new plant will take more time for land acquisition and permitting. Offsetting this, rebuilding an operating plant will take longer than building a new plant. For reference, Glenwood Springs’ $32 million plant received Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment approval in September 2009 and was in operation three years later in September 2012.
Credit should be taken for shutting down the Bodo sewage lift station.
A new plant is required to produce a cleaner effluent than that from the rebuilt Santa Rita plant.
A hard look needs to be taken if the ½-cent sales tax funds can be used to defray some of the costs. For instance, can they be used for removing the old plant and grounds improvements because that creates new park space?
We should have three cases to consider: (1) rebuilding Santa Rita, (2) a new base-case plant and (3) a reduced-cost case. Then the council and residents can weigh in on which one offers the “greater good” for Santa Rita Park.
We recently bought a new vehicle. The dealer offered us several trim lines in the model we were looking at. There was quite a price difference. But they all will get us where we need to go.
Dick Reitz has a chemical engineering degree and worked for a major energy company before retiring to Durango. He has extensive project development experience. Reach him at RAR05@bresnan.net.
