Ironhouse to break ground on new wastewater plant

By Roni Gehlke
The Ironhouse Sanitary District will break ground on its new wastewater management facility on Wednesday.

The long-awaited ground breaking comes after years of planning a new plant that would handle the needs of both Oakley and Bethel Island, according to district engineer Jenny Skrel. It will be located on Walnut Meadows Drive near the Ironhouse Sanitary District office.

After receiving several bids for the construction of the facility, many of which came in under the district engineers' initial estimates for construction, the district finally made its decision of which company they would contract with. On April 7 it awarded the project to Western Water Constructors Inc. of Santa Rosa.

Skrel said that the bid price came in at just over $54 million.

"That is $12 million less than the engineers had originally estimated," he said.
Western Water Constructors Inc. has worked on several wastewater improvement projects throughout Northern California, including the recent Marin Wet Weather Improvement Project in San Rafael and the White Slough WPCF improvements in Lodi.

The sanitary district began working on the plans for a new wastewater plant several years ago while the area was experiencing rapid growth. Even though growth in the area has slowed down in the past few years, the district still needs to complete construction on the new plant as soon as possible. Recent new state regulations require the plant to be upgraded. Since the cost of upgrades would outweigh the cost of a new plant, ISD chose to start from scratch.

The district recently received special low-interest financing from a State Revolving Fund Program (SRF) that allowed it to put the project out to bid and get the ball rolling.

The district said that the ground breaking on Wednesday will be very low-key with no public invited. There will be a bigger event some time in the future.