Town’s $48M sewer plan heads to public hearing

RIDGEFIELD — With costs a concern, a key component of the town’s

$48 million sewer project — renovation of the wastewater treatment plant off South Street — has gone out for construction bids.

The project is headed for a May 7 public hearing of the Planning and Zoning Commission and Inland Wetlands Board.

“The South Street project is out to bid, and we can only hope that we will get good results from that process,” said Amy Siebert, chairwoman of the Water Pollution Control Authority, the town agency overseeing the project.

“We’re on schedule,” First Selectman Rudy Marconi said. “We have to have a contract awarded by July 1st, and we’re on schedule to achieve that — assuming all the bids come in and we have a contract that’s acceptable.”

Rebuilding a sewer plant to treat

1,120,000 gallons a day is a complex project, and the plant renovation is expected to take up nearly $32 million of the entire sewer project’s $48 million projected cost.

With a number of municipalities including Danbury, Wallingford and Vernon seeking bids for sewer projects, town officials are aware that market pressures could affect construction bids.

The bids are scheduled to be opened May 10, although in complex projects of this sort bidders sometimes seek extensions of the deadline to get all the required paperwork in.

Two-phase plan

Voters approved $48 million last November to upgrade town sewer treatment facilities. The project includes renovating the District I sewer plant on South Street to meet tougher environmental standards for removal of nitrogen and phosphorous in wastewater that is discharged after treatment into the Great Swamp, headwaters of the Norwalk River which flows into Long Island Sound.

That $48 million appropriation is also expected to cover a second phase of the project that would close the smaller District II sewage treatment plant that serves business and multifamily development in the routes 7 and 35 area.

A pump station and pressured sewer line would be built from there to South Street, where wastes from both sewer districts will eventually be treated at the renovated District I plant.

Both phases of the project are required by the state and federal environmental authorities, with state and federal grants available to reduce some of the costs — if the town meets a demanding schedule to get it all done.

“A total project cost of $48 million, and you’d deduct $11.5 million in anticipated grants,” Marconi said. “Everything has to be submitted and approved, but that’s what’s anticipated.”

Eventual approval of the $11.5 million in grants would leave a projected total of about $36.5 million to be paid by the town.

“And the rest will be financed through the Clean Water Fund at 2 percent interest,” Marconi said.

Repayment will be covered largely through sewer use and hookup fees. Fees are expected to about double, although the increase would be phased in. Properties not on the sewer lines — the majority of those in town — would cover about an $8 million of the bond repayment costs through the general taxes over the years.

Plans for the South Street plant’s renovation project were formally accepted April 9 by the Planning and Zoning Commission and Inland Wetlands Board and scheduled for a joint public hearing of the two land use agencies Tuesday, May 7.

Board and commission members — they’re still the same group until after November’s election creates a new separate wetlands board — plan to walk the site at 22 South Street on Sunday, May 5, two days before the hearing.

The site walk is technically a public meeting, and citizens may attend.