Wastewater Facility Improvement

Completed - 2022!

Current Report (January 2020)

Bids for construction of the City’s Wastewater Treatment Plant were opened in November of 2019 and construction is now underway. The project was awarded to Swank Construction of Kalispell for a contract amount of $20,370,000. Construction officially begins on February 10, 2020. Work on the new wastewater plant will continue for approximately 18 months with construction completion anticipated by early September of 2021.

Winter Update 2020

Swank continues to make excellent progress on the wastewater treatment plant.  The exterior shell of the building is now complete including the “grit building” which has now been erected.  The site is a buzz with plumbers and electricians working inside the structure and many of the compoWWTP IMG_2708nents within the reactors are being installed.  We are also happy to report the existing wastewater lagoons are performing well during the construction. Swank Enterprises is about 50% complete with the project and billed $12.1M of a $20.2M contract, which includes the purchase of the majority of the treatment equipment that has yet to be installed.

  1. Background Information
  2. Anticipated Schedule
  3. Change in Nutrient Standards
  4. Individual Economic Variance
  5. AquaNereda®
  6. Project Documents

In January 2017, the City’s engineering consultants Anderson-Montgomery Consulting Engineers and Robert Peccia and Associates began the design of a major upgrade to the City’s wastewater treatment plant. Portions of the existing plant date back to the late 1970s and the facility is not capable of meeting current or anticipated new regulatory permit requirements.

As a result, the Facilities Planning process completed in 2016 indicated that a new mechanical treatment plant, generally described as a Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR), was the most cost-effective means of upgrading the City’s wastewater treatment facilities. This type of plant will produce a high quality discharge including the removal of much of the ammonia in the effluent, a significant lowering of the amount of nitrogen and phosphorous in the discharge and a reduced potential for odor generation.

The plant is being designed to meet the standards set in the 2015 wastewater discharge permit issued to the City by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), including limits for total nitrogen and total phosphorous allowed through a general variance process established by the state. Estimated costs for the plant are $17.5 million dollars.