Village to spend $97,700 for treatment plant design study

The Fredonia Village Board has voted to spend $97,700 for an engineering and design study to install a new grit-removal system in the village wastewater-treatment plant.

The engineering firm Strand Associates will be hired for the study. The money will come from impact fees collected by the village from developers. That account has about $400,000 in it, officials said.

Public Works Director Roger Strohm said the grit-removal system will replace a bucket-and-chain system currently used to remove sand, dirt and other materials from raw sewage before it enters the plant.

The new system is expected to cost about $1 million, he said. 

The current system, besides being less efficient and messier, also removes valuable organic material used by microbes in the treatment process to digest sewage, Strohm said.

Trustee John Long said the hope is the study will be completed in the fall so that a request for bids can go out by the end of the year.

Officials said the construction of the new system would likely be paid by borrowing from a state fund that carries a lower interest rate.

Village President Don Dohrwardt said the grit-removal system would be the “first step in improving and upgrading the plant” to bring it more in line with state Department of Natural Resources guidelines regarding phosphorus levels. It also would mean greater efficiencies and operational savings, Dohrwardt said.

Those additional improvements would likely cost another $1 million or more to complete, Strohm said.