$15 million grant secured for Clarksville wastewater plant improvements

Grant funds have been secured that will result in major Clarksville sewage treatment upgrades, and less sludge being trucked to the Bi-County Landfill on Dover Road.

An American Rescue Plan (ARP) grant for close to $15.4 million goes to the city of Clarksville, and has been earmarked for the wastewater treatment plant upgrades, state and local officials said this week.

The money will be used to help construct a thermal dryer as part of the city’s main sewage treatment plant, said 22nd District state Sen. Bill Powers (R-Clarksville), who made the initial announcement of the grant. The state Department of Environment and Conservation was instrumental in procuring the money.

“This grant funding will allow for important infrastructure upgrades that will benefit residents and businesses throughout the community,” said Powers. “I appreciate the hard work of TDEC and local leaders who made this announcement possible.”

The American Rescue Plan, effective March 11, 2021, was designed to help Americans recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The funds were provided to state and local governments for a variety of potential uses, including improving water infrastructure.

Tennessee received more than $3.7 billion from the ARP, and the state’s Financial Stimulus Accountability Group dedicated $1.35 billion of those funds to TDEC to support water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure projects in Tennessee communities.

Since the May 2010 river flood disaster in Montgomery County and other areas of middle Tennessee, the existing Clarksville sewage treatment plant has been, at times, inoperable or inadequate to meet the demands of growth.

To assist the city through challenging times, Bi-County Solid Waste Management Systems, which maintains the Dover Road landfill serving Montgomery and Stewart counties, and Fort Campbell, has been accepting sludge from the wastewater plant.

Clarksville Gas & Water General Manager Mark Riggins has said there is now an end in sight to the odorous sludge at the landfill — a frequent source of complaints from surrounding Woodlawn residents and passing motorists — at a total cost of about $32 million. The ARP grant will significantly curb that cost to the city.

"We're working toward a long-term solution, which will involve the use of thermal dryers for treating sludge at the wastewater plant," Riggins has said. "Our new process will also significantly reduce the volume of sludge that's generated."

The six-story structure for handling sludge at a centralized space in the wastewater plant is currently in a refined planning and design phase.

Of the $32 million to build it, $2 million will be spent toward processes to reduce or even eliminate odor.

"A big part of the goal of doing this is to get our sludge out of the landfill, completely. Both the odor, and the cost, are what's driving this," Riggins has said.

A side benefit of the process is that area farmers will be offered some of the stabilized, treated sludge to use as fertilizer for crops.

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Riggins added, with the announcement this week, that the thermal dryer project is a priority of his department. "So I am especially thankful for everyone with the state and my team who had anything to do with the approval of these funds.

"We are elated, as this will go far to offset the inflation we are experiencing on capital project construction, and therefore will certainly prove beneficial to our ratepayers," he said.

Clarksville Mayor Joe Pitts said with the funds being secured, the end to a problem that has plagued the city for years, is near.

“We are grateful to the state of Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation for their approval of our grant application," Pitts said. "The funding will help solve a long-standing issue at our wastewater treatment plant. Credit to Mark Riggins and our employee family at CGW for their work in securing these funds.”

Reach Jimmy Settle at jimmysettle@theleafchronicle.com or 931-245-0247. To support his work, sign up for a digital subscription to TheLeafChronicle.com.

This article originally appeared on Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle: Clarksville wastewater plant gets $15 million grant for improvements