The city of Meridian is making progress toward meeting the goals outlined in a federal consent decree dealing with the city’s wastewater system as city leaders weigh the need of a bond issue to continue the forward momentum.

 

Meridian, in 2019, signed onto a consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Justice and Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality in which it promised to address chronic sanitary sewer overflows happening throughout the city. Caused by decades of deferred maintenance and lack of investment in the infrastructure, the overflows put Meridian in violation of the Clean Water Act.

 

In his quarterly update to the City Council on Tuesday, Waggoner Engineering’s David Ruhl, who acts as program manager for the consent decree, said major improvements have already been made as the city continues to inspect, clean and repair its network of sewer lines, pump stations and wastewater treatment infrastructure. In fact, he said, three sanitary sewer overflows may come off the city’s list in the near future. The overflow sites can be taken off the list if no overflows occur within a year, he said, and three locations along the Highway 80 Trunk Line, a main line in the city’s sewer system, are nearing that goal.

 

Jason Gault of Kimley Horn, an engineering firm contracted to help the city with its physical wastewater infrastructure, said Meridian so far has replaced or rehabilitated more than $38,500 feet of sewer line throughout the city, representing approximately $14.8 million in construction projects. The city has also cleaned more than 63,000 linear feet of 6 to 10-inch pipe and more than 31,500 linear feet of 12 to 15 inch pipe, as well as used video cameras to inspect more than 100,000 linear feet of pipe.

 

Using video cameras, smoke testing and other methods to test the pipes running beneath the city, Gault said Meridian’s physical infrastructure does not appear to be as degraded as engineers had initially feared.

 

“They mostly just need a good cleaning,” he said.

 

Gault and his team are currently working to finish up a sewer group evaluation plan that will be submitted to the EPA in June. Once that is done, he will focus on a pump station evaluation plan to assess the condition of each of the city’s 67 pump stations that help push wastewater to the treatment plants, and a deeper analysis into how the city can prioritize needed sewer repairs.

 

Ruhl said these studies and plans are mandated under the consent decree and must be done, but they will also give the city needed information about how to move forward with correcting problems with its wastewater system and using funding efficiently. Work is currently underway at some of the city’s pump stations to keep them functioning properly until the greater analysis is done, he said.

 

While Kimley Horn has been looking at the more than 300 miles of sewer line, another engineering firm, Neel-Schaffer Inc., has been working at the city’s two wastewater treatment plants to address problems there. James Lawson of Neel-Schaffer said a multi-million project to upgrade parts of the South Wastewater Treatment Plant has finished up about a month early and workers are getting started on a disinfecting system at the East Wastewater Treatment Plant ahead of schedule. Also at the south plant, a project to clean out equalization basins, which are used to temporarily store wastewater during heavy rains when more water is coming in than the plant can treat, freed up an estimated $20 million gallons of extra space.

 

Despite the upgrades, the city’s south plant is old, Ruhl said, and city officials may want to consider building a new facility for future use. The oldest parts of the south plant are pushing 75 years old, and other parts are 50 years and older. While still operational, the plant is getting to the point where building a new plant may be the cheaper option long term.

 

“Every year you’re going to be sinking money into this plant,” he said.

 

As the city continues to make headway on consent decree projects, the time for another bond issue to fund the work is rapidly approaching. The city passed an initial $41 million bond in 2020 to start the work with the expectation additional bond issues would be needed in the future. Total costs over the life of the consent decree are estimated to be approximately $150 million. Should the city decide to build a new plant, or be forced to build a new one to meet EPA regulations, that could add another $100 million to the bill.

 

The city has done a good job of leveraging outside sources of funding to stretch the initial bond as far as possible, Ruhl said. Meridian received a $10 million federal appropriation and made use of a state grant program to match its $8.9 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds for a total of $17.8 million in ARPA money. More money, however, is needed to keep the momentum.

 

Ruhl said there are some projects in the works that can be pushed to next year if a bond issue is not completed, which will free the city up to focus resources on mandated work until more money is received.