City Council reviews wastewater treatment plant plans | News | muskogeephoenix.com

Plans for a new $80 million wastewater treatment plant could sent out for bids next spring, an engineer involved in designing the new plant said.

Keith Beatty, engineer with Olsson Engineering, showed a Power Point presentation with plans and an architect rendering of the new plat at Monday’s Muskogee City Council meeting.

Muskogee seeks to replace its damaged plant, located at 5000 Hancock, which dates to the 1950s and has obsolete wastewater treatment systems.

The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality issued a consent order in 2021 citing more than 24 ongoing violations at the city’s sewer plant. The DEQ had earlier issued a consent order in 2017, after exceedances were reported because of the loss of “two of its three plant drain pumps.”

Catastrophic flooding in 2019 and a frigid winter storm in 2021 exacerbated the problems.

Beatty said the engineering firm is working quickly on the project. He said similar design projects usually take two or three years. However, the treatment plant design is 60% complete, he said.

“The contract was signed in January,” he said. “We actually will have it (plans) written and ready to go just before Christmas this year.”

He said the anticipated bid date is April 2025.

“And then we can get started with the project,” he said.

Muskogee Public Works Director Mike Stewart said the wastewater plant is Muskogee’s largest infrastructure project since he’s been with the city.

“It is an $80-plus million project that is funded with an FAP loan through the water resources board,” Stewart said.

According to an Oklahoma Water Resources Board media release, the board approved an $82 million loan through the Financial Assistance Program in January.

“These proceeds will be used for major improvements to the wastewater treatment plant, rehabilitation of a sewage pump station, flow equalization basins, and headwork facilities, and to demolish facilities which are no longer in service,” the media release states.

Stewart said the plant has not had major upgrades in 25 years. He said it was upgraded in the 1970s and 1990s.

The Muskogee plant has the last trickling filtration system of any Oklahoma city, Stewart said.

Beatty said the plant will be a state of the art facility, built above the flood plain.

“We’re removing a plant that built in the 1950s, which was trickling filter,” Beatty said. “The staff has done a great job in keeping things moving through the plant, et cetera, and with all the issues that have been there over the years.”

He said the new plant will use ultraviolet disinfection to kill bacteria, and will use aerobic digestion, a biological process that breaks down organic matter.

The plant will have an administration building with a laboratory.

Beatty said a good portion of the basins will be underground and main basins will be half-underground.

“As you drive by, it is still a water treatment plant,” he said. “We cannot make it pretty. It will be concrete structure with nice buildings.”

Beatty said another phase for the wastewater plant is planned in the future.

“And it may fall within the flood zone area, but it will be tanked so there would be no issues,” he said.