After many months of planning, grant writing, and waiting, last Friday it was announced the City of Upper Sandusky was awarded the full $7.14 million requested for a major wastewater project. The grant was part of the Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Grant awarded under the Ohio BUILDS program. In this sixth and final round of program funding, $122.7 million was awarded and requests for over $1.4 billion in funding were received. The Upper Sandusky award was the largest single awarded in the final funding round.
The project will include new sewer mains along N Warpole Street and down Houpt Drive to the wastewater treatment plant. Not only will the project provide a brand new interceptor into the plant through which much of the city’s waste will ultimately flow, but the project is necessary to transport future wastewater generated by the Louis Dreyfus Project.
Almost a year ago, it was determined that although the city’s wastewater treatment facility had adequate excess capacity necessary to serve the LDC project, the sewer lines running from the west side of the city to the treatment plant would not be able to handle the new capacity. The City of Upper Sandusky and LDC jointly worked with Peterman Associates to assess the current infrastructure and design system upgrades based on this project and the City’s needs moving into the future. Following those studies Peterman Associates worked with the City and WCOED to build out a grant application.
According to the application, grant funds will be used:
“…to construct a new interceptor sewer, which will intercept the flow from the southwestern portion of the city at the location where it turns east to join the east interceptor and divert the flow directly to the treatment plant – reducing the flow at the location where the east and west interceptors combine. In addition to satisfying regulatory requirements, this project will provide a connection point to provide sewers in areas currently undeveloped. It will also provide a sanitary sewer connection point for the recently announced soybean processing plant that is to be constructed west of the city. The project will benefit 6,537 people.”
The project will not only alleviate issues within the city’s current system and allow service for the new LDC facility, but can be used by future developments with significant wastewater requirements located in and around the western and northwestern parts of the city.
The WCOED would like to thank member partner Peterman Associates for all of the work it put into making this funding a reality.