During their Dec. 21 meeting, the City Commission will consider awarding a contract to Prospect Construction for $4,880,587 for improvements to the water treatment plant filtration.

The filtration improvements project began in response to a 2011 technical filtration process evaluation.

City finalizes water treatment plant improvement project

“The original evaluation was completed when water treatment plant staff noticed a decline in filter performance. This project will fulfill the recommendations of that evaluation including filter media replacement, underdrain system replacement, installation of an air-scour filter backwash system, making improvements to filter backwash to waste piping, and minor structural repairs. These upgrades will be integrated with existing plant processes to improve overall plant performance and control,” according to the staff report.

Staff is recommending approval of the contract for phase two of the project and construction is scheduled to be done October 2022 and May 2023, during low water demand, according to the staff report.

This phase of the project will make improvements to six of the existing filters on the west side of the plant filter building.

Commission to consider $2.26 million agreement for water plant upgrades

During construction, the functioning filters on the east side of the plant filter building will handle city water demand.

The first phase of the overall project was completed in 2021 and consisted of improving six filters on the east side of the plant filter building.

Phase three will begin once this project is completed and will be treated as a separate project to rehabilitate existing filters 1-4 on the southwest side of the plant filter building, which was originally built in 1916.

This portion of the project is intended to bring plant filter capabilities up to full performance and improve filter cleaning processes, according to city staff.

“Through the integration of plant process reviews, upstream and downstream of the filters, the plants overall performance will be improved. Filter cleaning and waste streams will also be upgraded for more efficient and effective filter maintenance,” according to the staff report.

The city’s consultants, Advanced Engineering & Environmental Services and TD&H Engineering, completed design phase engineering, plans and specifications. The consultants will also provide construction phase engineering and inspection. Project administration will be carried out by representatives from the city engineering staff.

The city received two bids for the project and Prospect Construction submitted the low bid.

The project was planned in accordance with the Public Works Capital Improvements Program and the funds needed in early 2022 for procurement of construction materials are available. With that, this project has also been identified as and ARPA eligible project and staff have prioritized this project as a potentially competitive candidate for round two, Bucket C, competitive ARPA grant funding application.

Staff are also planning to submit a grant application to the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation for the project.