by Sarah Miley

STAFF WRITER

Tooele County has retained an engineering firm to study the feasibility of a regional sewer plant that could possibly include Grantsville, Tooele, Stansbury Park, Lake Point and county-administered parts of Tooele Valley.

"We're just doing a little investigation to see if one would be feasible," said Tooele County Engineering Director Vern Loveless, who added the idea of such a facility has been kicked around for years. "We're serious enough about it now to have an engineering firm see how feasible it is to combine some sewer treatment facilities."

Bountiful-based Aqua Engineering is the firm conducting the study.

If a regional sewer plant was feasible and plans to construct one put in place, it would mean that wastewater from existing treatment facilities -- Grantsville, Tooele, Lake Point Improvement District and Stansbury Park Improvement District -- would go to a regional sewer plant.

"What we're looking at is a regional sewer system," Loveless said. "We're not looking at collecting sewer from all the homes in the Tooele Valley, just collecting from existing sewer plants."

He added the regional sewer plant would probably be an augmentation to the existing facilities, with possible consideration of the existing facilities for either pre-treatment or post-treatment.

Aqua Engineering's Craig Neeley, who is also the contracted city engineer for Grantsville, said, "It's always less expensive to build a centralized facility than several satellite facilities."

He added existing facilities wouldn't be abandoned if a regional sewer plant was built, but rather integrated into the new system.

"The trick would be to integrate the existing facilities and use those, but yet use this facility for the areas that didn't have adequate treatment or capacity," he said.

The county's plan to consider such a system comes at a time when growth is taxing sewer infrastructure in many areas.

Grantsville City is contemplating an expansion to its sewer system, and Tooele City, despite currently undergoing an expansion, is already looking at upping its treatment capacity again, according to Loveless.

Additionally, Stansbury Park and Lake Point, which have their own lagoon systems, are part of the study.

Tooele County has a few facilities -- Miller Motorsports Park and Deseret Peak Complex -- that are currently being served by Tooele City, so the city has an interest in a combined system as well. That sewer line is pumped to the Tooele City treatment plant. Future anticipated growth around the area near Sheep Lane would eventually require some sewage treatment, Loveless said.

Grantsville, Tooele City and Tooele County are contributing $7,000 each toward the cost of the study, and Lake Point and Stansbury Park are contributing $1,000 each, Loveless said.

"All five of us have anticipated needs for sewage treatment, and it's been proposed that we do something," he said.

Neeley said the study began in April and should be completed sometime in mid-June.

The study will look at general demographics and population projections, as well as the feasibility of collection from the five aforementioned areas.

Based on findings, Aqua Engineering will produce several cost estimates for the project.

"We may not be able to collect from all those areas, so we may be looking at various alternatives to either take wastewater from difficult areas or not take it from those areas," said Neeley.

Neeley said upgrades to the Tooele plant would likely be utilized if the regional sewer plant were to be proven feasible and accepted, and a regional plan put in place. The Tooele plant could possibly be used to bridge the capacity gap from the time that this plant would be started to the actual time it would be implemented.

"One option is to use that extra capacity in the Tooele City plant to bring the regional plan online," he said.

Cary Campbell, director/chief building official of Tooele City's Community Development/Public Works department, said he believes a regional sewer plant is the way to go.

"Everybody working toward the same goal just makes sense," he said.

Regardless of whether or not a regional sewer plant comes to fruition, Neeley said Grantsville will likely implement an interim project to increase its treatment capacity.

"Grantsville's very near capacity right now," he said.

"Just like we need water, we need a place to treat it once we're done using it," Loveless said.

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