Ferdinand Town Council Decisions Made: Site chosen for wastewater drying beds

“We’re meeting tonight to discuss more on the phosphorous issue,” said Town Council President Ken Sicard, as a prelude to a special meeting held Tuesday night (April 7).

In fact special meetings have become the norm as council members race the clock to meet all the deadlines imposed by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) to abate problem phosphorous issues in the town’s waste.

At a special meeting held last week, the council had narrowed down options for the placement of six drying beds to two sites — east of the Old Town Lake and on CR 475E at the spot familiarly known as the town’s former dump.

Here was their conundrum. The Old Lake property is closer to town so long-range hauling costs would be lower. However, the Town would have to purchase property to make this work and also built a road around the lake, which would increase the costs as a series of culverts would have to be installed along drainage-ways.

The CR 475E site is further from town, increasing hauling costs over the long term but costing less to build.

The hauling, by the way, is for leachate, or the liquid that will drain from the beds, leaving solids behind that can be land applied when dry. This liquid will be returned to the treatment plant for disposal.

Engineer Jon Wetzel with Midwestern Engineering (Loogootee) provided a detailed cost comparison of both sites, not including the beds themselves ($1.2 million for six, no matter where they are placed).

It isn’t, nor can it be, apples to apples or even apples to pineapples as the variables include things like a new lift station and force main IF the leachate would be piped back to the wastewater treatment plant rather than hauled — which could only be done from the Old Lake site. This was by far the costliest option with a probable construction cost of $508,000.

Were the beds to be placed there without piping the leachate back to the plant, the cost would run around $364,000.

Conversely, using town-owned property on 475E is by far the cheapest construction option at $170,000; however, hauling costs are significantly higher, with the first option at the Old Lake coming in at about $7,600 per year, the second, $12,300, and the 475E site, $22,100 (all worse case scenarios).

The discussion went on for about an hour as Ferdinand Town Council members weighed their options, discussed hauling methods and routes and all the intricacies of a difficult project that is essentially an unfunded mandate from the state government due to a higher than permissible concentration of phosphorous in the town’s sewage.

Sicard had toured the Jasper Wastewater plant earlier in the day as that utility also uses drying beds and he said that with three times the beds, there was no odor, but neighbors near the Old Lake had issued concerns.

In the end, Sicard veered from the norm and made the motion to use the town-owned property on County Road 475E for the drying beds. Councilwoman Debbie Johnson seconded the motion and it passed on a 3-0 vote.

Councilman Ron Weyer suggested that some of the work could be handled by town employees, including brush clearing, and advised he would provide Wastewater Superintendent Roger Schaefer with names of timber buyers to see if any of the timber has value.

Wetzel was authorized to proceed with the next steps, including any environmental reviews that will be required from Rural Development as part of the funding process. He said he will get a surveyor on site to begin determining the best layout for the drying beds.

In other business, council members agreed to split the cost for repairing and sealing cracks in the Town Hall parking lot between all departments, rather than taking it all from the Roads and Streets budget. Property and Street Superintendent Tom Lueken has a $7,000 budget for such repairs and the parking lot alone will cost around $3,300.

He planned to use another $2,856 for other street crack sealing projects, but by splitting the expense of the parking lot four ways, Lueken can earmark the remainder to take care of additional streets as the winter weather has done extensive damage.

At the request of Park Board members, the council also agreed to sell two mowers by sealed bid the Park Board plans to replace.

Details will appear in the public notice section of next week’s Ferdinand News and the bids will be opened at the May 12 meeting.

After two special meetings in two weeks it almost seems surprising the regular April Council meeting will be held next Tuesday, April 14, beginning at 7:30 in Town Hall.