Maryville council looks toward new water plant

At the June 24 Maryville City Council Meeting, representatives from HDR Engineering were in attendance to discuss the next steps toward a potential new water plant for the city and area water customers.

According to HDR, membranes used for water treatment are approaching the end of useful life in August 2027. The city and HDR are looking at August 2027 on having the new $50 million plant running at Mozingo in order to avoid having to pay for new membranes.

The Ozone Biologically Active Filters (BAF) plant has been approved by MoDNR, and would be the first of its kind in Missouri. The treatment would work by drawing the raw water from Mozingo Lake, taking it through pre-treatment, the ozone filters and then the disinfection treatment. Since 2022, a pilot plant using Ozone BAF has been in use, giving useful information and data on the effectiveness of the plant’s treatment.

The city will be pursuing the MoDNR State Revolving Fund (SRF), which is touted as a partnership that provides low interest loans to cities for water infrastructure. The application is due in August of this year, and the city will also need to hold a bond election in February 2025. If the bond is approved by the voters, then the Clean Water Commission can potentially approve the SRF loan for the city. The city council is also scheduled to a have water/sewer fund workshop in August 2024, and are planning to authorize the 2025 bond election in November 2024.

In the fiscal year 2022, customer bills for water and sewer went up almost 37 percent and every subsequent year there has been a three percent increase, which is around $2 increase every year for the average water usage customer. The one-time increase in FY 2022 was to align revenues with costs, and the small recurring increases every year is due to overall cost escalation.