COVINGTON — The Covington Council is moving forward with plans to improve and renovate part of the village’s aging wastewater treatment plant. This could come with a hike in rates.
Monday the council was presented with the results of an evaluation of the village’s plant. This was an update from 2013.
The council opted to improve its current facility over alternate options of building a completely new facility or abandoning the facility and connecting to Piqua’s wastewater treatment plant.
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The first two options are estimated to cost more than $14 million and the initial cost of the third option is more than $7 million.
“Pumping it to Piqua is the cheapest capital alternative but the actual user costs are substantially higher because the village then would not be controlling the costs that our residents, our business incur to have that service,” Kyle Hinkelman, Covington Village Administrator said.
Ultimately being able to control rates for the people of Covington rather than have someone outside the village determine rates was one of the key factors in the decision. The capital investment of improving the wastewater treatment plant isn’t unique to Covington, many communities face similar issues.
“You have to always keep in context is this facility was built in 1941,” Hinkelman said. “It’s served this community well for 70 years and that’s really what this facility and the design and the process that whatever we do will last us for another 70 years.”
Hinkelman said the council is expected to vote on a proposal in July and encourages anyone to come and share their input as they look to take the next step in this process. With a high capital cost it would likely come with an increased rate, but what that will be is still to be determined.
“Depending upon what loans the village decides and hopefully with the infrastructure packages that the federal government is looking at currently, hopefully the village will be able to utilize some of those federal funds and grants to bring that number down,” Hinkelman said. “As long as we bring that number down the goal is to not have to raise rates any further than absolutely necessary.”
Hinkelman estimates after making a decision finalizing the paperwork will last in to August and said the earliest the construction could be completed is August 2023.
Anyone interested can review the entire study and get more information at www.covington-oh.gov/wwtp.
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