The Maysville Board of Trustees approved an engineering report during their regular meeting Sept. 19 that moves the town’s water treatment plant another step closer to a necessary overhaul.
The town has been working with the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality to resolve consent order violations related to its water treatment plant for several years.
The engineering report was presented to the board by Dale Burke with Infrastructure Solution Group, LLC, an engineering consulting firm based in McAlester.
“We’ve already submitted this engineering report once. It’s already been through DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality) once. It’s already been approved once. If you’ll remember, when we decided to do the water projects, we broke it up into phases so the city could afford it. Phase one was the water treatment plant. Phase two was the lines in town,” Burke told the board.
He then reminded them a previous board of trustees had decided to complete the water line portion of the project first, after being offered funding from Indian Health Services to do so.
Burke said the report presented this month had been updated to reflect purchasing Trustees were presented with several options for the water plant, including refurbishing the existing plant and changing to a chloramine method for disinfecting water, which Burke said would have an initial capital cost of $3.8 million and would cost $12.5 million over the next 40 years.
The board also considered options to build a new membrane water plant at an initial capital cost of $4.2 million and a $13 million cost over 40 years, to develop wells at a cost of $12.8 million over 40 years, or to connect to lines from rural water districts in McClain or Garvin Counties and purchase water from those entities, which Burke said would have an initial capital cost of $3.2 million and an estimated cost of $18 million over the next 40 years based on current water costs.
The option to purchase water from neighboring rural water districts has been favored by the board in previous meetings, but at the time it was thought the initial capital outlay to run water lines to connect to the existing systems would be funded by other non-town sources. Those funding sources have not panned out.
With the new cost estimates, Trustee Janet Davis pointed out the main difference between refurbishing the existing plant and buying water from rural water districts was creating a situation where Maysville is dependent on other entities for water.
In light of a recent letter to the town from DEQ, asking for action, Burke told the board of trustees he needed them to make a decision on direction.
“DEQ is on us to do something,” Burke told the council. “They’re on us to do something, and I can’t wait around anymore because it’s not doing you guys right.”
The board agreed, voting unanimously to move forward with Burke’s recommendation to submit a plan to DEQ to refurbish the existing plant.
Burke said once the plan is approved, the town can begin the process of identifying and applying for grants and other funding for the project.
Under other town business, trustees appointed Penny Couch to serve on the Maysville Library Board and voted to take open bids to sell the merry-go-round recently removed from the town’s walking trail.
Trustees also discussed replacing broken security cameras at the town hall building, and the possibility of adding more high-resolution cameras, before agreeing to have Trustee David Uhles get quotes for different options and report back to the board.
During the Maysville Municipal Authority portion of the meeting, trustees voted to forego an executive session regarding employment of the town’s water plant operator and accept his oral resignation, which had been delivered to Trustee Joe Couch several days prior to the meeting.
Couch is the trustee who oversees the town’s water department.
Trustees then approved a measure to hire Steve Wheeler, who has previously been employed with the Oklahoma Rural Water Association, as a consultant to assist with water plant operations in Maysville on a shortterm basis.
“When this thing was starting to fall apart, and I knew it was going to, I called (Steve Wheeler). I thought I was calling ORWA, but it’s his phone, so he answered,” Couch said. “He’s always been willing to help, and he immediately came down here Saturday morning and started helping us get (the water treatment plant) back running. He’s been a tremendous help and he’s willing to continue to do that.”
Couch told board members the plant had been “in terrible shape Saturday night.”
“Our guys worked all night long to get that water plant back in working order to where it would even pump water, and they’ve been at it almost day and night since,” Couch said.
The measure approved by the board includes paying Wheeler a flat fee of $1,000 a month to operate the water treatment plant under his operator and lab licenses, as well as $2,000 per week in compensation to keep the plant running and to train Maysville employees to take over operations at the plant until a new licensed operator can be hired.