NORWICH – The ongoing project to update the city’s water treatment facility has taken another step forward, this time with support from key state legislatures for the funding necessary to break ground on the new facility.
Planning for the project, which began in 2007 with plans to replace the now 109-year-old water treatment plant currently being used on Rexford Street, gained the backing of United State Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) this month. A letter written by the senator urging the United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development Program (USDA-RD) to provide the city with a $5.02 million Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant was submitted two weeks ago in hopes of securing funds needed to take the project to the next level.
“The (Water Treatment Plant) is integral to the city. Its replacement is continent upon the ability to secure the aforementioned funding. Without the Grant/Loan package, the City of Norwich simply cannot undertake the replacement of their outdated surface water treatment plant,” the letter states. Schumer noted the project would also provide short-term jobs as the city rebuilds its aging infrastructure to sustain industrial and economic growth.
“The current water treatment plant in Norwich is over a century old and hampering the city’s ability to attract new businesses,” Schumer added in a press release. “Without this USDA funding, the City of Norwich’s plan to build a new water treatment plant will be left out to dry.”
According to City Mayor Joseph Maiurano, the endorsement is highly beneficial for the city’s funding application to the USDA-RD. City officials are currently waiting to hear the results of their application.
“I’m optimistic that this will be the year the project is finally funded,” said Maiurano. Planning for the project has been six years in the making. “It takes that much time just to get everything in place,” he added.
In 2012, the city met a request from the USDA to lower the cost of the project from the proposed $9.4 million to the current $5 million, which it did by eliminating a central heating system, reducing the size of the facility from 5,000 square feet to 3,900, utilizing a pre-engineered building in lieu of a masonry building, and eliminating the replacement of a new water storage tank on Wheeler Ave (a move that, by itself, cut the cost of the project by roughly $2.2 million).
Replacement of the water storage tank has become a project separate from the water treatment plant, meaning the city is eligible for new funding opportunities in the future.
More recently, the city approved the project be carried out by the lowest project bidder, Albany-based Delaware Engineering, P.C. Though funding will be in place when the city finally begins construction, the objective is to replace acquired loans with grants as the project moves along, explained Maiurano. The city took a similar approach when building the Waste Water Treatment Plant.
Said Maiurano, “Any project dealing with water and wastewater is important to meet basic needs. They (federal legislators) know it’s a big project but it’s one that needs to be done. And you can’t build up local industry without it.”