Officials begin planning for wastewater plant overhaul

CELINA - An extensive overhaul of the city's wastewater treatment plant expected to commence in less than two years will be the most expensive utility system project in Celina's history.

City officials need to make a staggering $32 million in improvements at the wastewater treatment plant in order to eliminate overflows or bypasses into Beaver Creek and maintain a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit with the Ohio EPA, according to a preliminary estimate calculated by consultant Jones & Henry Engineers LTD of Toledo.

The solution entails expanding the plant, replacing outdated equipment and heightening treatment capacity.

"This is the single largest project that Celina will ever undertake, probably," Celina Mayor Jeff Hazel told city council members at this week's regular meeting.

Excessive infiltration and inflow reduces wastewater treatment capacity during periods of heavy rain. When the plant cannot handle the high flow rate, influent bypasses directly into Beaver Creek. The plant has about seven bypasses a year.

The bypasses average about 1 million gallons but have been as large as 7.7 million gallons.

"We have an existing wastewater plant that works good for our average day and our size of community, but right now we are not looking at replacing the wastewater plant," councilman Eric Baltzell said, reading aloud the minutes of a utility committee meeting. "We are looking at expanding the wastewater plant."

The overall recommendation from Jones & Henry Engineers is to expand the plant, replace outdated equipment, and add a third oxidation ditch and two new clarifiers. This would eliminate the bypasses and boost overall capacity, according to wastewater treatment plant superintendent Kerry Duncan.

Sophia Rodriguez, the chair of the Mercer County Democratic Party who is challenging council president Jason King, a Republican, in the November general election, posed a series of questions about the project to councilors, chief among them, how much of the cost will be shouldered by utility customers.

"How much of the expense of this new project will filter down to the consumers of Celina?" she asked. "What kind of increase, if any, will the citizens of Celina see in their wastewater bill, their electricity bill, things like that? Because that was one of the first questions I had when I read about the project."

The answer to that query, Hazel noted, won't be known until city officials get a more precise project estimate and lock in financial assistance.

"As far as the cost to consumers, we do need to have more information to know how that is, obviously what's offsetting, if there's any grants out there," he said. "Can we get low-interest loans through the government? We don't know that ... but we are working on it."

Earlier this month, Peter Latta, director of Jones & Henry Engineers' Toledo office, said a quick analysis revealed there's only a handful of programs for which the city would qualify, due to its solid financial status.

"Because it is need-based and then there's also compliance," Latta said about financing criteria. "You've got the compliance side but you're a strong community which unfortunately works in your disfavor."

The Ohio EPA's Water Pollution Control Loan Fund is likely the city's best bet, he said.

"As you're aware of, most likely, the wastewater department doesn't have a debt obligation currently. We paid off our debt obligation," Duncan pointed out. "So that's a good thing going into a massive project like this."

Moving forward, councilors will likely take up legislation next month authorizing Jones & Henry Engineers to develop a preliminary design of the project. Hazel said he believes the contract price would be just shy of $380,000.

"It gives us a better idea of that (project) cost, that first 30% (of the project)," Hazel said.

Councilors in 2023 moved to authorize a $174,000 agreement with Jones & Henry Engineers for review of the city's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit and to perform an analysis of the wastewater treatment plant.

Jones & Henry Engineers indicated that they're ready to get started on preliminary design as soon as they get the go-ahead from council.

"It will give the consultant a better idea of what they're looking at in (project) costs right now," Hazel told The Daily Standard. "Everything's an estimate based on their analysis, but when they start putting that together, putting pen to paper and start doing the layout, making sure everything fits, then the next step would be to finalize the design."

Ohio EPA had initially wanted Celina to submit a permit to install for plant improvements in April 2026 and for construction to begin six months later in October. But Jones & Henry believe they have bought the city a little extra time.

"We requested a modified schedule because that schedule is a little aggressive, and we don't feel that in your guys' best interest you wanted to execute that schedule," Latta said. "So we proposed about a six-month delay in that. As of right now, the EPA has not objected to that revised schedule."

Under the revised project schedule, a permit to install for the planned improvements must be filed by Oct. 1, 2026, following by the initiation of construction on April 1, 2027, and completion of construction on April 1, 2029.

Councilors scheduled a committee meeting to resume discussion on the project. It will be held at 6 p.m. July 14 in council chambers on the second floor of the city administration building. The regular council meeting will follow at 7 p.m.