The new Byrdstown Water Treatment Plant is expected to be substantially completed by the end of October, despite a recent setback.
The town’s Board of Aldermen learned that the contractor attempted to tie in the new water plant on Monday but encountered a section of solid rock. Herrick Company Vice President of Operations Luke Zakrzewski said his crew is using a jackhammer to break the rock to lay pipe.
“It’s been tough, no doubt about it, but you know, in the best interest of not damaging the existing structure, you can only shoot so far,” Zakrzewski said. “So, you know, we’ve got to break it and we gotta do that and that’s our cross to bear and we’ll do it. That’s just part of it.”
Mayor Sam Gibson said the type of rock they encountered was blue limestone, which is one of the hardest rocks in the region. Zakrzewski said having to blast the rock is actually a good thing because the existing pipe was bearing directly on the rock.
“When we hook it up, we have to break it out so it won’t be bearing on that rock anymore,” Zakrzewski said. “It will have good bedding underneath it. So sometimes bad things turn into good things.”
Engineering Consultant Representative Zeida Hillis said the contractor will still have some cleaning up to do around the site in early November. Gibson said he is looking forward to having the water treatment plant completed.
“We’ve used what is considered just a regular old pond, almost like a man-dug or a tractor-dug pond for our settling basin,” Gibson said. “And we have repaired it because it’s fell out three times while I have been here, and that takes a considerable amount of money to redo that because you have got to go through the proper procedures once you do that. And so now, once we get this completed, it will be the first time we have ever had what you call a concrete settling basin, basically like I guess about what everyone else has got except us. So that kind of gets us up there with other people and gonna make life a whole lot better here.”
The town’s new water treatment plant cost an estimated $3.8 million. The project was covered mostly through grant funding.
