Milan gets $3.6 million in state funding for wastewater treatment plant
The city of Milan has received $3.6 million in state funds to improve its wastewater treatment plant. The facility was last updated 16 years ago.
“A few months back, state Rep. Reggie Miller, D-Van Buren Township, and state Sen. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, sat down with the city of Milan and asked, ‘What can we do to help the city?,’” James Lancaster, city administrator, said.
“Mayor Ed Kolar and Mayor Pro Tem Mary Kerkes slid our capital improvement list across the table to them, and they said, ‘OK, we will see what we can do,’” Lancaster said. “They both went to bat for our residents here in the city of Milan and fought for this grant. This funding allows us to catch up to where we should be in terms of our wastewater treatment plant and our capital improvement goals. It allows us to effectively plan and fund future upgrades without burdening our residents with huge rate increases.”
“I’m proud to have secured the resources needed to make a major improvement that will benefit the people of Milan,” Miller said.
The money will be used to update the headworks building and ultraviolet system at the plant.
“About a year and a half ago, city council voted to have our engineering firm, OHM, develop an asset management plan for our wastewater treatment plant. They engaged F&V (the operators that operate our plant) to produce a game plan to do some much-needed work at the plant. The five-year capital improvement plan totaled around $3.6 million. Most of the upgrades will happen within the headworks building and the ultraviolet system, which is essential for the treatment process,” Lancaster said.
Ultraviolet light is one of the systems used to remove harmful organisms from wastewater.
The city needs to create a plan before construction can begin.
“We are currently working to establish a plan with our engineers and the operators to develop a request for proposal so that way we move this project to the bid process. Once that process concludes and the bid is awarded, we will have a better idea of when construction will begin," Lancaster said.
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It’s unknown when the project will be completed.
“The last time this plant underwent major upgrades was in 2007, when we did a plant expansion,” Lancaster said.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Milan gets state funding for wastewater treatment plant upgrades
