Santaquin approves designer for sewer plant

SANTAQUIN — An engineering firm got the go-ahead Tuesday to begin designing Santaquin's planned sewer-treatment plant, contingent upon state approval of the project and the city's ability to pay for it.

J-U-B Engineering can begin the design work on the Santaquin Water Reclamation Facility project as long as the city gets adequate funding from various sources and approval from the Utah Division of Water Quality to reuse the water in its new secondary-water system. Among those sources is $4.7 million from DWQ.

The engineering firm's contract is for $998,480.

If approval from DWQ doesn't come, the engineering firm must cease its design work, Councilman Fil Askerlund said.

The design contract passed with Councilman Brent Vincent dissenting. Vincent said the decision tells residents what direction the council is taking without first getting bids for the construction of the sewer plant. The plant is expected to be completed by 2011.

But Mayor Jim DeGraffenreid said getting the bids first wasn't necessary.

"This has been before the public, and there will be one more public hearing," DeGraffenreid said. "This is to move it forward."

The sewer plant would replace the city's long-standing sewer lagoons west of town, which are at capacity.

"We've outgrown the lagoons," DeGraffenreid said.

Earlier, resident John Chatterly questioned why the city worked on building the city pressurized irrigation system through the winter when the irrigation pond hasn't yet been built or the land acquired.

"I thought you were going to bring it on this summer," Chatterly said. "Why do you have the cart before the horse?"

The irrigation system will be functioning then, DeGraffenreid said, but the water — a mixture of irrigation water and culinary water — will be pumped into it until a pond can be built.

"We ran out of money" to build the pond, the mayor said.

Also, with just 600 shares, the city doesn't have enough irrigation water to feed the system without supplementing it with drinking water.

The piping system is expected to be finished by May or early June, DeGraffenreid said.

E-mail: rodger@desnews.com