Tour went well

A guided tour of the City of Three Rivers Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) early Tuesday evening (June 11) provided an opportunity to view the current operation of the facility and learn about the items completed during a $4.1 million plant improvement project.

Elected officials, community members, and local industrial customers were invited to attend the ‘project completion presentation and guided plant tour’ at the facility on Wolf Road at the south edge of the city.

In welcoming approximately 25 people who gathered for the event, WWTP Superintendent James Baker said, “My main goal tonight is to let everybody see the plant, see the progress that we’ve made with the construction project.”  He said the project was bid out in June of 2011 and completed in March of this year – ahead of the July 2013 deadline required by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).  Visitors had an opportunity to view a display showing project highlights, review a binder of photos from the project, look over plans for the work, and pick up literature provided by L.D. Dosca Associates, Inc. of Kalamazoo, the general contractor.  Baker then led the tour that provided attendees to see and hear about various aspects of the facility and the improvements that were put in place through the project.

Baker indicated the project included odor control components and said, “For the most part, we doubled our odor control capacity.”  And he said, “We’re pretty confident that most of the odors – if not all of the odors – have been resolved.”

Baker described the improvements as “a great project,” noted that – in addition to being  completed ahead of schedule – it came in under budget, and indicated the project went smoothly.

The plant improvements were designed by Jones & Henry Engineers, Ltd.

The WWTP has a capacity of 5 million gallons per day and operates at around 1.6 million gallons per day.