City Council receives update on wastewater treatment plant replacement project

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

The city of Sandpoint is progressing with its effort to replace and upgrade the ailing wastewater treatment plant, which has limped along for years with equipment and facilities that in some cases date back to the 1950s and even 1940s.

Members of the City Council gathered for a special meeting Nov. 20 to hear an update on efforts to assess the 2019 facilities plan for the plant, as well as potential funding strategies and estimated timelines.

“This is my No. 1 priority; hopefully many of yours’ as well,” Sandpoint Mayor Jeremy Grimm told the council, describing the wastewater plant as “failing in many ways.”

Setting the agenda for the special meeting, Grimm said the big questions at this point are “how do we really crack this egg in terms of do we look at incremental replacement of these bits and pieces; do we look at a turnkey system that can replace them all; what do we not know at this point as we start to build up to a cost estimate and then sort of outlining the timeline and funding sources.” 

A clarifier tank at the wastewater treatment plant. Photo by Soncirey Mitchell.

Sandpoint Construction Manager Holly Ellis was joined by representatives from Keller Associates, which is consulting with the city on the project, including project manager Kyle Meschko, engineer Dallin Stephens and Vice President Jim Mullen.

“Currently the plant lacks capacity,” Ellis said, adding that the facility has the capacity to treat 5 million gallons, but with the addition of inflow and infiltration from rain and snow, flows can exceed 10 million gallons.

“Our crews, our staff are having a really hard time operating this equipment that’s deteriorating, it’s undersized and there are operational challenges,” Ellis said.

Meschko told the council that Keller Associates has spent the past several months reviewing the 2019 facilities plan, as well as performing topographical and geophysical surveys at the site of the plant, which is located on the Pend Oreille River adjacent to War Memorial Field and Lakeview Park.

Following that analysis and subsequent discussions, Meschko said Keller Associates and City Hall officials agreed that the best way forward would be to stick with the current “conventional activated sludge process” with phased replacements of failing infrastructure components such as clarifiers, the digester, primary filters and headworks. 

In addition, the preferred option for odor reduction would be a process using ultraviolet light to create a blend of oxidizing agents, ionized atoms and molecules to break down the contaminants that result in the smell known so well by residents in the vicinity of the plant.

That route would cost as much as $100 million and come with an estimated completion date of fall 2029.

Funding would come from a combination of sources, including short-term loans and local bonding, backfilled with low-interest 40-year loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and 40-year funding from the Idaho Department of Quality.

Seeking the DEQ dollars would come first in the process, with a letter of interest expected to be sent to the department in January. Sandpoint’s request would be pooled with other applications from around the state, which DEQ would assess based on need and available funds.

“It seems strategically more appropriate to go with the traditional activated sludge plant, where we might be able to piecemeal the funding for this plant over three years, where one year we apply for funding for the headworks and the primary filters, the next year for the digester, the next year for the clarifiers,” Grimm said.

Going forward, Keller Associates V.P. Mullen said the city should have a response from DEQ on funding by June. Meanwhile, if a bond election in May results in success, “We’ll turn around right after that and submit an application to [USDA] Rural Development as well. They’re usually pretty quick with their response and we’ll probably know within a June or July timeframe what their funding package looks like. 

“Probably by midsummer we’ll have a really good idea of funding packages, how much and scheduling and all those kinds of things to be able to move forward on next steps,” he added.

Whether or not a bond might be proposed in May 2025 is still up in the air. Calling that timeline “aggressive,” Grimm said the possibility of getting that measure on the ballot will depend on what ratepayers can bear.

“Which, once we implement our next rate hike, are going to be pretty high rates nationally,” he said, later adding, “that’s only going to support a bonding amount of around $60 million.” 

The Nov. 20 special meeting was informational only, but Grimm said there will be additional meetings in December or January, and multiple future opportunities for public involvement as the funding proposals are solidified.

Meanwhile, “You have a facility where many of the buildings and structures are beyond 60 years [old],” said Meschko, with Keller Associates. “There is some hope because some of the concrete of these structures is in generally decent shape, given the age. But I think the big thing is that your facilities are approaching that expected useful life, and there needs to be a plan in place to make sure that those are appropriately accounted for replacement.”