By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

The Hays City Commission is beginning discussions about renovation of the aging city’s wastewater facility.

According to Roger Moerke, Utilities Superintendent-Wastewater, the digester was built in 1953 and the last upgrade to the plant was in 1997.

During a recent tour of the facility, Moerke called the plant “antiquated.”

The wastewater treatment is a biological process, not a chemical process. Even so, said Moerke, it’s a “corrosive harsh environment” for the equipment.

The two aeration basins, or headworks, which Moerke called the “heart of the operation,” need an upgrade to meet stricter requirements of the Environmental Protection Agency by 2018.

Several years ago, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment on behalf of the EPA, notified the city the nitrogen and phosphate levels in the city’s effluent water stream would need to be significantly lowered in the future. The city was fined earlier this year for exceeding those EPA limits.

With the current wastewater treatment plant, “we’ve became as efficient as we can to reduce levels,” according to Moerke:

Preliminary cost estimates for a new wastewater treatment plant are between $24 and $28 million.

The Hays City Commission began discussion of the project during Thursday’s work session. Click HERE for the story.

To see the entire Community Connection interview with host Mike Cooper, click HERE.