McMinnville will hold an official groundbreaking ceremony for its new water treatment plant Monday.
Plant Director Ricky Morton said the current treatment plant is 65 years old. City leaders decided it was not worth it to continue making repairs to the structure.
“The new facility should last many, many years without, you know, any problems at all.” Morton said. “I mean, there will be hiccups along the way just like with anything, you know, any new build.”
Morton said the new plant will have a capacity of roughly five million gallons per day, not a large increase from the current rate. The construction big set at $15.6 million with another $2-$3 million in engineering, design and inspection fees.
“They shouldn’t see any change you know, as far as the quality of the water,” Morton said. “Because our water meets or exceeds EPA standards for what we are doing.”
The city will pay for the new facility with a combination of funds. They will use American Rescue Plan dollars and a special loan from the state of Tennessee for much of the construction. Some of the design fees will come from the city’s general fund.
Morton said the new treatment plant will have a type of technology called Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition of SCADA for short.
“That’s a computer system that drives the plant,” Morton said. “And it’ll have a back up. It’ll have a backup to where if the computer did go down, we could still operate the treatment plant.”
Morton said the new facility will be built on the same property as the current plant. Once construction is completed the city will salvage what they can from the old building then tear it down.
Morton said the winning bidder has already set up their portable buildings on the site. Construction is set to begin the day after the groundbreaking ceremony.
The construction contract is for 600 days.
