Sludge dryer already $1.3M over budget
POTTSTOWN » The project to replace the 10-year-old maintenance-plagued sewer sludge dryer at the Pottstown Wastewater Treatment Plant is already over budget — by $1.3 million.
What was supposed to cost $3.7 million will now cost at least $5 million as the result of the bids unanimously accepted Tuesday night by the Pottstown Borough Authority.
The primary reason is the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, according to Authority Manager Justin Keller and Authority Engineer Tom Weld.
Not only did it take the DEP
seven months to approve the air emissions permit, but because “the technology is new, DEP doesn’t know how to regulate it, so they were very conservative,” said Keller.
The Gryphon dryer system is in place working in Kentucky, where it processes chicken waste at a Tyson plant said Weld, adding “but this is the first time it is being used to process municipal waste.”
As a result, a number of upgrades were required by DEP that not only accounted for more expensive equipment — like a “bio-filter” instead of an “air scrubber” — but also required a bigger footprint to accommodate the new equipment.
The new equipment and larger footprint also made some of the contractors conservative with their bidding as well, so the bids came in higher, said Weld.
The higher bids affect more than just the borough since the three surrounding Pottsgrove townships all send at least a portion of their sewage to the plant — and thus are bearing a share of the cost of replacing the dryer.
Lower Pottsgrove Township Manager Ed Wagner and West Pottsgrove Township Manager Craig Lloyd were both at the meeting concerned about the price jump.
Wagner said Lower Pottsgrove ratepayers face an increase of $357,000, a 27 percent increase in the amount the township budgeted for its share of dryer costs. The township’s share jumped from $959,746 to $1,317,153, he said.
“My ratepayers can’t afford that,” he said, asking the authority board to delay accepting the bids top give Lower Pottsgrove time to absorb the additional costs into its budget.
But the authority board voted unanimously to accept the bids, in large part because the current dryer is no longer worth fixing. “I was up three nights for 24 hours each trying to keep that dinosaur going,” said Utilities Manager Brent Wagner.
Also, the longer the authority waits to get the project going, the deeper into the winter and thus the more expensive the hauling untreated sludge to the landfill becomes.
“Once we get into February, you’re looking at another $350,000,” warned Wagner.
Keller said there are several ways the cost could be brought down.
One is a “fine screen” project at the sewer plant which was originally slated to cost $1 million but has been “re-engineered” to reduce the cost to $500,000. A $500,000 grant for which the authority has applied would, if awarded, pay that entire cost and so free up $1 million to cover much of the cost over-run.
Keller said the media coverage over the “flushable wipes” issue had been included in the grant materials and may help its chances.
Additionally, the project is expected to take more than a year, even though the authority hopes to have the dryer online and running again by December or January.
Keller said much of the additional cost “can be pushed off to 2019, which would give the townships time to adjust their budgets for 2019.”
Lloyd said the more those additional costs that can be pushed into next year, the better for his township’s budget.
The sewer plant is also producing increasing revenues through the accepting of “bulk sewage” from septic trucks and by mid April, is already approaching the anticipated revenues for all of 2018, said Wagner.
That revenue will increase with the new system, which is a pressure differential dryer and will allow the plant to process 20 percent more sludge than it currently does.
It also has fewer moving parts and so is easier to maintain, is more energy efficient, using 40 percent less natural gas than the current system.
Thanks to those revenues, and the reduced cost, the new plant is expected to pay for itself within seven years, said Authority Board member David Renn.
It was not immediately clear whether the additional $1.3 million in costs will require a sewer rate hike, although Finance Manager Janice Lee informed the board Tuesday that due to diminished cash on hand for construction, a hike in the water rate may be necessary in 2019.
The current dryer system, manufactured by Komline Sanderson, was purchased in 2007 for $6.7 million and was one of only three options on the market at the time, said Weld.
Since it was installed it has allowed the plant to produce a high-quality end product that can be used by farmers as fertilizer, or as fill. Most importantly, it does not have to buried in a landfill, a proposition that cost millions.
But the dryer has been plagued with maintenance problems, forcing it to be shut down for days, meaning the plant’s end-product had to be landfilled during the colder months when the dryer was off-line.
Since 2008, maintenance costs have added up to more than $2.5 million, in addition to another $5 million in hauling costs and the additional natural gas costs of $1.7 million, Weld told the authority last year.