Waste Water Bid Brings $200,000 Overage

The City of Jasper granted the bid for the city’s controversial waste water project to RTD Contracting Incorporated last night. The bid came in at $1,764,578.40. This is $235,000 over the budgeted amount for the project, which is funded mainly through a bond. Addressing funding the overage, City Clerk Tacie Williams said the city has two options.

“One,”

she said,

“is to go back to GEFA and ask them to give us additional funding off of the state revolving fund. It’s a 1.82 percentage rate over 20 years.”

Williams said this would result in a $15,000 increase in annual principle interest payments. The other option is to transfer money from the city’s Water Investment Account. She explained that the account is used to collect funds of capital improvement projects in case cost of such projects run over.

“We have a big enough balance in that account that if we used the $250,000, we would still have an (ample) balance (in that account),”

she said. Council approved the transfer from the Water Investment Account.

Presenting at the meeting, Ben Turnipseed explained the project will not be a physical expansion of the facility, but a modification.

“It (the project) is designed to provide phosphorous removal; to do de-chlorination and also provide more oxygen, which will reduce the odors,”

he said.

Over the passed few weeks, the project has proven controversial.

Earlier in the meeting, residents of Montview Drive, the only access road to the city’s waste water plant, launched a series of concerns and complaints about the project and the plant, emphasizing the dangerous amount of transfer truck traffic on the road and the odor emitting from the facility. In the face of public outcry, Mayor Weaver agreed to reduce truck traffic by decreasing the number of septic trucks entering the plant, adding that the city would still have to use the road for some trucks to transfer material to the plant. By doing so, though, Weaver said it would cost the city approximately $200,000 in revenue. Further, he said because of this reduction residents can expect to see an increase in rates.

“We’re going to try to be a good neighbor. We don’t want to lose any friends over this, so bear with us and work with us,”

Weaver said.