By Austin Rust-
A special meeting of the Manchester Village Council was held on July 1 in Manchester to discuss the next steps of a sanitary and sewage system update planned for the town. Phase 1 of the project began nearly a decade ago, and this year, a bid has been accepted to begin work on Phase 3.
According to Steve Mack, an engineer, Phase 1 focused on putting liners into damaged older sewers to prevent leakage, and replaced the lift station that collects sewage and pumps it to the waste-water treatment plant on the far side of town. Similar work (lining sewers, etc.) continued in a different part of the town with Phase 2, and Phase 3 will target another problem section.
“This particular phase – it’s essentially Second Street (the main street of Manchester) down to the river, in terms of the collection system,” said Mack. “It’s going to include some improvements to the waste-water treatment plant as well. We’re going to rebuild a couple of the storage tanks.”
Equipment inside of the waste-water treatment plant will also be getting an upgrade.
“Some equipment in there is getting near the end of its useful life,” Mack explained. “So it’s not as efficient anymore. We’re working on fixing some of that.”
Other projects planned for Phase 3 include a storm water catch-basin near Cemetery Street, where water is known to pool up and cause issues, and a valve for RV’s to empty waste holding tanks.
The funding for Phase 3 will be provided by the EPA’s WPCLF (Water Pollution Control Loan Fund) program, which stipulates that bids accepted must be within 10 percent of their projected cost estimates. A bid was received from Unger Construction for $1,461,830, which fell within the acceptable range of these estimates. The council voted unanimously to approve the bid.
“We’re getting these grant monies that are allowing us to update our sanitary and sewage systems. We haven’t had an update to those in awhile.” said Mancheser Mayor C.L. ‘Skip’ Wagner.
According to Mack, the sewer systems in Manchester were built starting in 1968. The oldest sections of the sewer are generally closest to the river, where Phase 3 will target.
“There were decades when the town wasn’t able to get the money secured to work on the sewer, sanitation, water controls, monitoring pollutants – all that kind of stuff,” Wagner continued. “Part of this process is to ensure that all of this work is done underground.”
“We just finished the payment on Phase 1,” Wagner added. “Phase 2 is starting to get completed. Now we’re gearing up for Phase 3 to make sure that the EPA and everybody else is lined up for the disbursement of money. That money comes to the village, we take it, then we immediately issue it all back out.”
“We try to be proactive,” added Councilman Troy Jolly. “And we have been. We’re always working two or three years in advance. We probably won’t see ground broken (on Phase 3) for a few years, at least, but it’s important to be on top of these things.”
