GMU Begins Process Of Replacing Wastwater Treatment Plant

The clock is ticking for Glenwood’s aging wastewater treatment plant and Glenwood Municipal Utilities officials believe the time has come to begin the process of replacing the obsolescent facility.

“It’s been almost 50 years and that plant is out of date,” said Doug Meggison, chair of the GMU Board Of Directors. “There are parts breaking on machines that can’t be replaced. We have to do something and that’s where we realize as a board we need to start the discussions and start planning.”

The planning process is already underway for replacement of the 42-year-old sewage plant, located south of the city limits near the intersection of 220th Street and Kesterson Road. The next step in the process is coming up with a design and price tag for a new plant. Early projections suggest the facility will cost between $45-$50 million. The initial design process alone is expected to cost $4 million but will be funded with dollars from the State Revolving Fund, a mechanism set up by the state for cities and and public utilities to borrow against at low-interest loan rates.

Jake Zimmerer, GMU’s engineering consultant, said there’s actually a three-year, 0% loan available for planning and design of a wastewater treatment facility.

“So, while we’re trying to figure out how we’re going to pay for this larger plant construction-wise, we have this loan in place. That way, every day costs and expenses are not being eaten up by the cost of the design,” said Zimmerer.

The first phase of the design process, Zimmerer said, will focus on determining the size, capacity and cost of the new plant. The new facility will be designed to meet existing usage but also have the capability to expand should there be a need in the future because of substantial residential or commercial development in or around Glenwood. Initial construction costs will be funded primarily by existing GMU sewer users in the form of higher rates.

“We want to be able to grow while keeping it reasonable enough that we’re not overburdening existing users,” said Zimmerer. “We have to find a happy median of treat what we have now, project (the future) the best you can while leaving open for the ‘what ifs’ that unfortunately keep popping left and right down there.”

The entire process, which includes design, permitting and construction, will likely take five or more years, but rate increases for existing GMU sewer users will start happening in the spring of 2026. GMU officials said they want to start collecting the funds before construction begins to soften and spread out the financial impact on its existing sewer users.

The construction loan will be for 40 years.

“Right now, the initial user rates are looking at a worst-case scenario of $50 million. If we were to have to do that increase all at once, it would obviously be very significant,” said Zimmerer. “So, the board is looking at spreading that over three years, four years, five years to start accumulating some funds that will pay for some of the initial costs, some initial construction with a little saving interest.

“We’re not going to wait until construction is done before we start paying this loan off. We want to start collecting money now so it’s not a big increase all at once – it’s a stair-step increase and GMU can potentially start collecting interest to save interest on the back end (of the loan).”

GMU Superintendent Dave Malcom said some funds are already set aside.

“We knew this was coming,” he said. “We do have some money and possibly it would be enough to cover the State Revolving Fund loan by the time it’s due in three years.”

GMU currently has 1,850 residential and 320 commercial sewer users in the immediate Glenwood area, 65 in Pacific Junction and around two dozen scattered users in outlying areas.

In addition to increasing user rates, GMU also intends to pursue state and federal grants and funding sources to help offset construction costs.

“Unfortuntely, Glenwood and GMU fall into kind of a middle tier of a lot of grants,” said Zimmerer. “Dave and I get plenty of opportunities where we’re either too big or too small. A lot of them are for very small towns or towns of 10,000 or more, so we’re hoping there’s some initial funding that comes out that can help us mitigate the impact of those rates.”

Meggison and Zimmerer stressed that the new facility will be built large enough to handle existing usage with a little bit of growth factored in. If additional capacity is needed down the road because of commercial development, a contract would be worked out with the business, or possibly the state of Iowa, to pay for the expansion.

“The goal is to limit the impact on everyday users as much as we can,” Zimmerer noted.

About 600,000 gallons of wastewater is treated at GMU’s existing plant on a daily basis, down from between 800,000 – 900,000 that was going through the facility every day when the Glenwood Resource Center was still operating. The facility has the capacity to treat 1.2 million gallons daily.

The new plant would likely be slightly smaller physically than the existing facility but have a similar treatment capacity.

“The footprint is actually going to be smaller because they’ve got new technology out there that are more compact units,” Malcom noted. “The type of treatment that we’re doing down there now is we’re using anaerobic digestion with rotating biological contactors as a secondary treatment. That takes up a lot of room – technology today is not that large.”

The new plant, to be built on adjacent land to the east of the existing facility, will tie into the existing pipes that pump the treated product to the Missouri River for discharge. Those pipes between the plant and river would not have to be replaced as part of the new construction.
Zimmerer said the cost of building the new plant will be felt by GMU sewer customers, but not replacing the outdated plant that was built with a life expectancy of 30 years, isn’t an option.

“At this point, if we don’t build it, we have no sewer,” he said. “You have to treat the sewage. As soon as we start putting sewage into that river that doesn’t meet our limits, you may get your hands slapped the first time and the second time, but after that there’s significant fines daily (from the Department Of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Agency) for not meeting those limits.”