Upgrades slated for water treatment facilities
The Sequencing Batch Reactor pump showing rags (flushable wipes) in impeller at the Manchester Waste Water Treatment Plant. This has to be manually removed from the pump impeller at least twice weekly.
As part of developing the village of Manchester’s budget for 2020-21, Village Manager Jeff Wallace addressed needed updates to the village’s wastewater treatment system, along with upgrades to water service lines as mandated by the State of Michigan, at the May 4 Village Council meeting.
About 100 village water customers received letters last month explaining that their water service leads were lead and/or galvanized, which according to state law must be replaced by 2040. As a long-term project, the village plans to do 5% of these replacements each year and the cost of these replacements will be reflected in water rates rather than taxes.
The state also requires that sewer and water enterprise funds be treated as businesses and operated in a cost-effective manner. The cost of any improvements to the water and sewer system are no longer routinely bonded by taxes, but are more often incorporated into the sewer and water rates.
Last September, former supervisor Dan Geyer reviewed the many upgrades needed for the Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP). The last upgrade to the treatment plant was in 1989, so it has been more than 30 years since any significant improvements were made. With the advent of “flushable” wipes and other products, the grinders and pump impeller at the WWTP are being over-burdened with trash that they were not designed to handle.
The headworks replacement and improvement suggested by Geyer as a solution to this concern is the first component of a four-step plan he recommended for budgeting in the 2021-22 Fiscal Year. Once the headworks project is on the timeline, the second and third steps, which include force main improvements and flow equalization along Vernon Street (where overflow can be an issue) and replacement of the Riverside Pump Station, which is aging and under-sized for future needs.
Geyer recommended that all of these stages be budgeted within the next 10 years.
Council discussed adding these improvements and starting to implement the water and sewer rate increases in the 2020-21 fiscal year. Other improvements that will be included in the overall project are upgrades to the Riverside lift station, force main extension, and an equalization tank. These improvements would take care of heavy flow situations, such as happened last week at the lift station, and upgrade the system for use over the next 30 years.
Water and sewer rate increases would start at $4.66 per month for an average (5000 gallons) user in the 20/21 year, and fluctuate annually to “feather in” the costs of repaying a 30-year State Revolving Loan Fund bond that would be necessary to complete the projects, with bond repayment beginning in 2023. The maximum monthly increase would be $5.37 per month in the 22/23 FY.
Wallace also provided a spreadsheet of sewer and water rate comparisons for council’s review. Manchester’s current average water and sewer bills are $60.71 monthly. Clinton’s average is $81.25; Dexter $89.79; Chelsea $96.02; and Brooklyn, $100.35. Higher rates in other communities reflect work they have been performing on their systems. According to figures Wallace calculated, by 2025/26, Manchester’s monthly water rates would level off at about $86.37 per month.
In good news, village taxpayers will see a 2.118-mill decrease in taxes in the 2021 tax year due to bond payments ending for the Ford building, Series A sewer bonds, and a Headlee reduction.
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