A public hearing was hosted during the Price City Council meeting on Wednesday evening in order to review and evaluate the proposed capital improvement project for the city’s culinary water system planning.
Miles Nelson of Price City Public Works spoke on this, stating that it is not normal to host a public hearing for one subject, but there is a requirement from the Community Impact Board to host a hearing within six months of applying for the grant needed in a project such as this. A project description and scope of work was presented.
Price City has a need for major upgrades to its drinking water system. With this in mind, the city is seeking to conduct a planning study in order to determine the most effective and efficient approach to the critical projects.
The planning effort will include two parts. The first will be transmission lines from Colton Springs to the water treatment plant, while the second part of the project will be a water treatment plant upgrade.
The first portion of the water system includes a 90-year-old pipeline running approximately 12 miles in length. It was noted that significant leakage has been identified, which puts the pipeline at a high risk for failure.
The water treatment plant also needs an update to address harmful algal blooms. This is an emerging contaminate and the city is seeking funding to develop a facility plan to document the condition of the existing facility while also identifying aging equipment in need of replacement. They will also develop or refine an asset management database.
“There is no current threat to the safety of Price City’s drinking water supply,” Nelson explained. “The algae that does appear in the Price River at times, usually during the late summer months, is being properly removed from the water that is filtered and purified at the city’s water treatment plant.”
It was further explained that the treated water that leaves the plant is tested frequently, as much as multiple times a day, to high standards, as required by the State of Utah’s Division of Drinking Water. Nelson stated that if the water were ever to fail to meet the standards, the public would immediately be notified, as required by law.
“The issue is that the appearance of algae in the river has become more prevalent in recent years, primarily due to multiple years of low reservoir levels,” said Nelson. “Price City is desirous to upgrade its treatment processes to more advanced technologies to get ahead of any future issues in dealing with the algae. What used to be an occasional appearance of algae in the river has become a more frequent occurrence, which has led to our desire to study our processes in consideration of possible treatment upgrades.”
In the project description, it is stated that the projected timeline is for the studies to begin in spring of 2023. This can happen once the required grant funding is secured and the professional consultants are selected through the request for proposals process.
Meanwhile, the actual studies and plan development is estimated to take 10 to 12 months, with an anticipated completion by spring of 2024. With this information presented, the public hearing was opened. However, nobody spoke on the matter, prompting the council to close the hearing soon after.
The proposed scope and estimated budget, which is expected to be grant funded for the culinary water system project, was then approved by the council.