Hyrum City to upgrade sewer system

Kevin Maughan, wastewater superintendent for Hyrum City shows how clear the water is after going through the waste water treatment plant before returning it to the enviornment.

HYRUM – Hyrum City is spending over $5 million upgrading their sewer system to meet the growing needs of the city and to accommodate extra water on high water years.

Kevin Maughan, wastewater superintendent for Hyrum City explains the how the waste water treatment plant works and the need for the upgrades.

Stephanie Miller, Hyrum’s mayor, said the waste water treatment plant is near the end of its life cycle and the city has been able to prolong its life, but now is the time to upgrade it.

“We want to make it more efficient so it will handle high water events and the growth we are experiencing,” Miller said. “My thing is making sure the city is in good financial shape before doing the upgrade, that’s important to me.”

Hyrum is growing at an exceptional rate.

“I think we are one the fastest growing cities in the county right now,” she said. “It seems to me I read that this year somewhere.”

The mayor said she plans to pay off the loan early with no penalty.

Ron Salveson, Hyrum City manager, said the city received word recently they received a USDA Grant for nearly $1.6 million. The city also has $1.2 million cash generated from new growth impact fees and they received a $2,402,000 low interest loan secured by the city at 2.75 percent.

Hyrum has over 12,000 house plots planned in different parts of the city. Most of the growth is on the east side of Highway 165. The refurbished sewer plant should handle the growth, Salveson said.

“We’ve been working on it for some time,” he said. “We are in the process of getting bids for expanding and rebuilding the plant; it has reached the end of its life and needs to be upgraded.”

It will probably be somewhere in the neighborhood of six months from the time the bids are accepted until the work is finished, Salveson said.

“Our current sewer plant is 17 years into a 20-year cycle,” said Kevin Maughan, wastewater superintendent for Hyrum City.

All of the upgrades are at the current location and should meet the growth for a long time; it will more than double the capacity of the plant, Maughn explained.

“We have a membrane system with a 12 to 20 year lifespan,” he said. “We are ending the life of the membranes and the new ones will take less to maintain.”

The sewer plant was built using a modular system, so it shouldn’t be that difficult to make the changes.

“The new plant should accommodate double the capacity of the existing system,” he said.

There has been some talk of other cities using the current sewer facility, Maughn said. If that were to happen, Hyrum would have enough space to add another building next to the current site.

The Hyrum Plant is very tidy and surprisingly odor free. Once refined, the water is introduced back into the ecosystem.

“The palatable water ends up in Cutler Reservoir,” he said.

 

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