Nelsonville Wastewater Treatment Plant
The City of Nelsonville relied upon a 70-plus year old wastewater treatment plant operating at 130% of its original design capacity for many years. It was quickly becoming antiquated and effluent limits were violated due to poor performance. The City understood the need to address the issue but struggled to find the best way to address the problem along with the resources necessary to make it feasible.
DLZ had provided sanitary sewers to unsewered communities in the surrounding area. In 2017, we approached the City about becoming a regional treatment provider, which allowed them to secure much more grant funding for the project. They then decided to begin planning for a new 1.2 MGD WWTP.
The City also acquired the existing sewer system in the nearby Village of Buchtel from the County Commissioners to remove the “middle man” and lower the inflated sewer rates paid by their residents. This provided a direct path for the regional partner communities in Hocking County to tie directly to the Nelsonville system. Our team worked with the City, commissioners from two adjacent counties, two villages, and several funding agencies to develop this plan and bring it to fruition.
We completed a preliminary engineering report to identify the best treatment process and location for the new facility and determined that an oxidation ditch plant should be constructed on a new site south of the City. The plant includes a headworks consisting of a fine screen and grit removal equipment, the oxidation ditch, two rim flow clarifiers, UV disinfection, sludge digestion, and a dewatering system. A new large pump station was constructed adjacent to existing treatment plant site in the City and one mile of 16” force main was extended from it to the new facility.
Despite numerous challenges created by the pandemic, the new facility was brought on line in the Fall of 2023 and has complied with treatment effluent limits from day one. The plant has a wet weather capacity of 4.8 MGD and will be able to serve Nelsonville and the surrounding areas for decades to come.
The total project cost for the treatment plant was $21,246,000.00, 64% of which was grant funded. The remaining 36% was financed through low interest loans. Our project funding partners included USDA, OEPA, OWDA, ARC, and OPWC.
