ASHLAND — The city of Ashland hired a company on Tuesday to design a needed tank that will contain untreated water when it rains too hard.
City council approved an ordinance that allows officials to enter into a contract with Burgess & Niple, an Akron firm, for the design of a new equalization (EQ) basin at the wastewater treatment plant.
The study is not to cost more than $218,000, according to the ordinance passed on Tuesday.
It comes on the heels of a separate study, also conducted by Burgess & Niple, that found ways to address an ongoing violation with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency: allowing too much untreated sewage to flow into Lang Creek, the stream that runs on the south side of the plant’s property.
The firm completed the study in December 2022, but it wasn’t until this July that the city landed on a solution that pleased the EPA.
That solution, in a nutshell, involves building a 10 million-gallon EQ basin, which will be the wastewater treatment plant’s second-such tank that is used when too much sewage and rainwater flows into the plant.
The problem
The sewage plant can handle up to 10 million gallons of water. Any additional water is diverted to the EQ basin, which is made up of two tanks the size of football fields and 80-feet deep, that can hold a total of 5 million gallons.
Sometimes it rains so hard that the water overflows the EQ basin.
Treatment plant records have shown the sewage plant has overflowed 27 times since 2016, amounting to just under 132 million gallons of untreated water trickling back into Lang Creek.
The EPA said that’s too much.
That’s why the city is now going to build a 10 million-gallon EQ basin, a plan the EPA called “acceptable” in a letter dated July 8.
But it came with a warning and a condition.
“If the system overflows more frequently … then additional work may be needed to reduce the overflow frequencies,” reads the letter.
As a condition, the EPA proposed a two-year “post-construction monitoring period” to make sure the new EQ basin is doing what it’s designed to do.
How much will it cost?
Burgess & Niple estimated the project will cost $14.4 million.
That might sound like a lot, officials have said, but it’s better than other more expensive alternatives.
According to Burgess & Niple’s analysis, other options include:
- fixing what’s referred to as “short-term” improvements to infrastructure and equipment at the wastewater treatment plant for $17.1 million
- reduce inflow and infiltration in existing pipes for $45.6 million
- expanding “secondary treatment” from the current 10 million gallons to 15 million gallons for $30.7 million
- treating water that overflows the current EQ basin, either before or after it flows into Lang Creek, for $12.1 million to $28.3 million
Long story short, every option is expensive. But the city had to choose one, and the plan had to be approved by the Ohio EPA.
Ashland Mayor Matt Miller said he’s not sure how the city will pay for the needed upgrades.
“I don’t see how we’re going to do it without help from the state or federal government in the form of a grant or some particular program,” he said.
The chances are great the city will need to take out a loan, Miller said.
“But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” he said.
In the meantime, Burgess & Niple will go to work designing the EQ basin in order to come up with a firm estimate on how much the new EQ basin will cost.
