Site prep work is finished and concrete foundation work has started on a new multimillion-dollar treatment plant to improve water quality and quantity for Wrangell.
“We’re actually pouring our first footings,” Amber Al-Haddad, the borough’s capital facilities director, said Feb. 14.
The metal building that will house the water treatment system is scheduled for mid- to late-March arrival, she said, with the equipment to follow later.
Completion is planned for June 2025 under the terms of federal funding for the project.
The new plant will remove impurities from the town’s water supply by sending streams of bubbles through the water to attach to solids, floating them to the surface for removal. It will have the capacity to produce up to three times as much clean water per day as the existing treatment plant, to accommodate growing demand and ensure sufficient supplies to meet the heavier needs of the seafood processing industry each summer.
Site work started in November, Al-Haddad said.
Rock-n-Road Construction out of Petersburg was a subcontractor on the site work to remove a rock bluff, which included some blasting, to make room for the new building, she said.
Ketchikan Ready-Mix & Quarry was also a subcontractor, handling excavation work. McG Constructors out of Sitka is the main contractor on the job. McG’s contract with the borough is for $19.6 million, with the balance of the $23 million project total going to design, inspection and administrative costs.
The borough has been working toward the new water plant for more than seven years, assembling a mix of federal and state grants and loans, with more than half of the cost covered by grants.
The borough was able to gather up the funding with only a minimal local contribution of $119,000 from the municipality’s water fund. Water utility fees will cover loan repayments over 40 years.
The project encountered a potential delay earlier this winter when new federal requirements under the Build America, Buy America (BABA) Act of 2021 threatened to delay ordering of the water treatment system from its Canadian manufacturer.
Although the borough already had received a waiver from the requirement, allowing it to order the equipment and remain on schedule, it now needs another waiver after the new BABA rules were adopted, Al-Haddad explained.
While waiting for the second waiver, and because of the long lead time to order the equipment and avoid any risk of delay to the construction schedule, the borough shifted around project funds to make the required 25% down payment on the equipment from other money outside of the BABA requirement.
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