St. Charles picks firm to design bigger water treatment plant

St. Charles is moving forward with plans to expand its wastewater treatment plant on the west side of town to allow for future development.

Functioning at 700,000 gallons per day, the water reclamation site on Route 38 is reaching capacity to serve existing customers on the west side of Randall Road, said Tim Wilson, the city's environmental services manager. As part of a long-term facility plan, the city is looking to expand the plant's limit to 1.05 million gallons per day to ease the demand and accommodate future growth in that area.

The city council on Monday approved a more than $2.5 million professional services agreement with Trotter and Associates Inc. to complete the project's design and engineering work - a process that could take more than a year, Wilson said. The St. Charles-based engineering firm then would oversee the bid process, budgeting, contract negotiations and the construction phase.

"Realistically, we're about three years away before we see (the project) fully operational," Wilson said. "We need to be a couple steps in front of (new) development so we have capacity available when a development comes."

The west-side plant is one of two water treatment facilities serving St. Charles, with Randall Road acting as the dividing line. A larger plant east of the Fox River near the public works building handles about two-thirds of the city's wastewater flow, Wilson said.

The smaller facility was purchased and refurbished by the city about 30 years ago after property owners west of Randall Road requested annexation and sanitary sewer service, according to city documents.

The site on Route 38, just west of Peck Road, is the former Illinois Department of Corrections wastewater treatment plant.

As St. Charles continued growing west, officials began thinking about expanding the plant in phases that would make economical sense for the city and taxpayers, Wilson said. That progress slowed for several years during the recession, he said, but development has started picking up again, "which is good news for the community."

The project is expected to be funded through the Water Pollution Control low-interest loan program, facilitated by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. Trotter and Associates will oversee the loan application process.

The expansion of the facility also will require upgrades to the biological wastewater treatment process to address new and pending environmental regulations, Wilson said. The improvements, all of which must be reviewed by the EPA, will include nutrient removal, biosolids stabilization and phosphorous removal, a process that isn't currently done by the plant.

"It really is a benefit to the city," Wilson said.