By Jim Bloch
Port Huron will hire the J. F. Cavanaugh Company of Farmington Hills for $918,000 to rehabilitate raw sewage pump #2 at the city’s wastewater treatment plant.
The city council voted unanimously to approve the work at its regular meeting Sept. 11.
The out-of-pocket cost to the city will be $618,824 after the townships of Kimball, Fort Gratiot and Port Huron, which all rely on the plant, pay their shares of the total.
“As a regional WWTP, the plant receives and treats wastewater from not only the City of Port Huron, but the three surrounding townships,” said City Manager James Freed in his memo to Mayor Pauline Repp and the city council. “Based on the Sanitary Sewage Disposal Service agreements, each of the townships are responsible of their percentage of all costs for the City to operate and maintain the WWTP.”
Port Huron Township accounts for 13.35 percent of the plant’s use and will pay $122,553 toward the cost of the pump’s rehab. Kimball Township accounts for 5.41 percent and will pay $49,664. Fort Gratiot Township accounts for 13.83 percent and will kick in $126,959. The city sewage amounts to 67.41 percent of the treated waste and it will pay $618,824.
“The waste water treatment plant has three raw sewage pumps at the head end of the plant,” said Eric Witter, head of the city’s department of public works, as heard on the recording of the meeting posted to YouTube. Those three pumps are electric. “There’s also two standby natural gas (pumps).” Those pumps are rated at 10 MGD each. “Based on the initial design, the three 20-million gallon per day pumps are there for the capacity of the plant, plus redundancy. (Pump #2) has not been operational. Pumps #1 and 3 were replaced back in 2010 and 2012. So it’s now time to replace this one that’s non-functional.”
Witter explained how the city ended up with a single bid after the project was advertised on the city’s website and on the Michigan Intergovernmental Trade Network website.
“We did have a mandatory pre-bid meeting,” Witter said. “We had two contractors show up. Of those, one submitted a bid of just over $900,000. We had a line item budget of $600,000. Our consultant’s estimate back in February was a little over $700,000. We asked them to review the bid and they said that in other areas and in other projects of this nature, they’re seeing a decline in the number of bidders and an increase in price.”
The city is required by its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit to have backup pumps in place.
“Redundancy is an issue now,” said Witter. “Back in the first part of July when we had those two consecutive heavy rain days, the natural gas (pumps) did fire on to keep up. So it’s time to do it. Unfortunately, it’s more than we budgeted. But it’s a key component of the waste water plant.”
The plant serves approximately 55,000 customers and treats approximately nine million gallons of wastewater per day, said Freed. The facility was built in 1951 and expanded in the mid-70’s to provide secondary treatment capability.
The final council vote was 5-0. Members Anita Ashford and Jeff Pemberton were absent.
Jim Bloch is a freelance writer based in St. Clair, Michigan. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com.
