Winchester Municipal Utilities is entering the home stretch on the Lower Howards Creek Wastewater Treatment plant.
A public meeting for the final plan presentation for the plant is set for 6 p.m. Thursday at the Clark County Extension Office in the industrial park. The meeting will provide a summation of the plan and reveal collected sampling date, goals and objectives for the watershed and the management practices to protect and restore the watershed.
The public will have the chance at this meeting to speak to team members and ask questions about the project. Personnel from WMU and Palmer Engineering will be available at the meeting.
The project is part of consent decree from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, after the agency filed complaints against Winchester and WMU for violating the Clean Water Act. In 2007, the City of Winchester and WMU entered into the consent decree with the EPA, which requires both boards to improve the wastewater collection system and eliminate sewer overflows.
The consent decree agreement runs through 2025 and the deadline for finishing work on the new plant is Jan. 31. The new plant should eliminate 13 of the 27 discovered sanitary sewer overflows.
According to a departmental report given to the WMU Commission last month, the project is on schedule to meet the January 2013 deadline. Should WMU miss the deadline, it could suffer hefty fines that escalate each day.
Contact Casey Castle at ccastle@winchestersun.com.
