County to improvewater treatment

$35Mexpansion to boost capacity, add softening technology.

Greene County residents are one step closer to having softer water.

The county is now soliciting bids for its planned $35 million water treatment plant expansion project.

The county will get bids from design-build teams and make a selection in the next six months, said Jason Tincu, director of Greene County’s Sanitary Engineering Department. Construction crews could start on the project as early as next fall. The project is slated to take between 24 and 36 months.

“We’re making improvements that will make the water system more reliable for our customers and provide water for the next 20 years,” Tincu said.

The project will expand the water treatment plant’s capacity from nine million gallons of water per day to 12 million per day. The project will also encompass adding water softening technology to the process.

Full-scale upgrades to existing infrastructure will be made. A new membrane building will also be built at the plant.

The Sanitary Engineering Department decided to use a membrane filtration method of softening instead of a process that relies on lime. Membrane filtration uses a tightly wound wrap that has very small pores that filter out contaminants like metal and other impurities.

HuberHeights and Miamisburg recentlyinstalledmembranefiltration systems in their water plants.

Tincu hopes that once the project is completed, Greene County homes will be able to phase out in-home softeners or at least turn them down significantly, saving homeowners time and money.

Greene County is targeting the same hardness as Dayton and Montgomery County, Tincu said.

To pay for the project, the Sanitary Engineering Department has taken out a 20-year loan from the Ohio EPA’s Division of Environmental Financial Assistance. The loan is for about 1.5%, which Tincu said is a “very competitive interest rate.”

The county also has bonds that are coming due and plans to use that debtcoverage to helpfundthe water treatment plant improvements, Tincu said. That means Greene County residents won’t see their water rates rise because of the project because the county can accommodate this project under the current rate structure.

Although the project is still in the early stages of design, Tincu said things are progressing as expected.