Major water and sewer work continues in St. Joseph as city commissioners approved a $1.1 million engineering contract this week for a project at the water treatment plant. City Manager John Hodgson tells WSJM News they’re replacing the old clarifiers at the plant.
“We’re replacing the clarifiers from the 1976 portion of the water plant,” Hodgson said. “What the clarifiers do is they take the water that’s come from the lake, we add alum to it, and the alum concentrates floaty things in the water, for lack of a better word. It takes that and gets things to settle out, so then the water is cleaner when it goes on to the next stage.”
Then the water moves on to another step. This is all part of a 20 year capital improvement plan drafted in 2014. The total cost is about $9.6 million, which would come in the form of a Drinker Water Revolving Fund loan. The contract approved this week was for $1.1 million of that, and the work will take place in 2024 and 2025. Also Monday, commissioners approved a $721,000 project to reduce overflow going into the wastewater plant. They noted the city is under a regulatory deadline to get that work done.
