Big money for a big water reuse project

CHENEY – The city’s proposed water reuse project (Purple Pipe Project) took another step towards realization last Tuesday when the City Council authorized officials to apply for a $22.8 million loan from the state’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund.

Public Works Director Todd Ableman told the council design work on the project had been completed and submitted to the state Department of Ecology for their review. At full buildout, including engineering, and with a “healthy” 20 – 30 % contingency factored in, the project taps out at just over $23.7 million — something Ableman said was “a little high,” but which Ecology officials felt was within range for the city to ask for the full amount to be paid for from the Clean Water fund.

“We decided to go ahead and pull the trigger on at least one of our funding options which would be the state revolving fund grant and the 50 % principal reduction,” Ableman said. “Talking with DOE, they felt we should put in for the full amount and see what offer and principal reduction comes back.”

According to Ecology’s website, the fund is provided by the federal Clean Water Act, and is funded through an annual Environmental Protection Administration capitalization grant, state matching funds and principal and interest payments on past program loans. The program “provides low-interest and forgivable principal loan funding for wastewater treatment construction projects, eligible nonpoint source pollution control projects and eligible ‘green’ projects.”

If completed, Cheney’s Purple Pipe Project would further clean already treated discharge water from the city’s treatment plant to higher, drinking water standards and allow it to be piped for use as irrigation water on parks and other open spaces.

Ableman said the city should received notice sometime in June 2021 whether or not they were successful in receiving a state loan. If successful, the city would have until July 2022 to accept that state’s offer, something that would be contingent upon Cheney’s success in getting other funding such as through the Smart Water Program and the state Department of Health.

“I believe this will be one of many applications that we will start and then we should know fairly soon by the end of the year after DOE reviews our package and we will pretty much have a full package ready to go,” Ableman said. “It will be a shovel-ready project.”

Mayor Chris Grover noted the city wouldn’t likely be able to afford 50 % of the project on its own, making securing other funding that much more important.

“We’ll have a lot of work behind the scenes for federal and state grants and other applications to help us fund this long-term,” he added.

In expressing his support for the application, Councilman Paul Schmidt said it was important to get Cheney’s name out in the push for external funding, something that could help with getting legislators and others behind the project. It was a large dollar amount, but so is the project.

“Look at it as a $10 million -- $12 million grant,” Schmidt said. “We just need to come up with the rest. We’re not there yet, and I think there are other avenues.”

The city has already secured a $2 million grant from the state Department of Commerce – funding being used to purchase the project’s treatment system. In July, the council approved a $1,114,908 bid from Enaqua for supply and installation of an ultraviolet disinfectant system at the plant to clean the wastewater to drinking water standards before it is discharged into the purple pipe system.

Council also approved a $629,965 bid from Aqua-Aerobic Systems for installation of a pile-cloth disk filtration system to be used in conjunction with the UV system. Aqua-Aerobic Systems was the highest of two bids, with a system provided by Nexom the low bidder at $349,569.

An evaluation of bids by the city’s consultant Esvelt Environmental Engineering determined Nexoms’ bid was non-responsive in a number of areas and disallowed. A subsequent protest by Nexom to the city was overruled by the council.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].