Conroe hires firm to help reduce odor from new wastewater plant
Conroe leaders have hired an engineering firm to determine how to retrofit the city’s new $59 million wastewater treatment plant with odor control devices, as complaints from nearby homeowners continue to mount.
The council approved a $105,000 contract with Houston-based Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam, Inc. during its regular meeting Thursday.
The plant began operations late last summer.
The new system being considered, Public Works Director Norman McGuire said, would use underground soil filtration to treat odor instead of venting gases into the air. McGuire did not have a specific cost but estimated it could total around $1 million.
“I’m going to predict it will be a little north of seven digits,” McGuire said.
Chris Bogert, with the city’s engineering department, said the new system would include excavating some property and a piping system.
“It’s a pretty cost-effective design,” Bogert said. “It won’t be too expensive.”
In January 2020, council approved a redesign of the plant, which removed odor control devices, to reduce the cost to $59 million from $64 million. The plant sits on 25 acres of a 50-acre greenbelt off Ed Kharbat Drive just south of downtown and has a capacity of 6 million gallons a day but can be expanded to process up to 12 million gallons.
Last November, McGuire told council members that residents along South Third Street whose homes back up to the plant complained of odors.
That same month, the city installed covers on the plant’s headworks. The headworks include the chambers that remove large solids and debris that interfere with treatment processes. That debris, McGuire said, is organic and produces a strong odor that permeates the area.
The staff has also started using sodium hypochlorite, known commonly as bleach, on those chambers. Sodium hypochlorite is considered to be an effective disinfectant and antimicrobial agent. McGuire did not provide a timeline on when LAN would bring a potential design back to the council.