Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Whitman County Public Works is preparing for the bid process on new effluent tanks to be built at the Waste Transfer site south of Colfax.
The two 10,000-gallon tanks will take the place of one 90x90 foot, 180,000-gallon evaporation pond which serves to evaporate all drain-off from the floor of the waste transfer station.
The water, called contact water, is now stored in the pond and evaporated or taken by tanker truck to the wastewater treatment facility in Colfax.
County Solid Waste and Recycling Director David Nails is working on the project with consultant Travis Pyle of Great West Engineering, based in Boise. Nails will meet with Pyle Jan. 18 to go over a draft of bid documents, with the intention to send out for bids in February or March.
The estimated $300,000 to $500,000 project will be paid out of the capital improvements fund.
Because the existing evaporation pond’s lower liner is nearly 20 years old, its integrity cannot be guaranteed, which prompts the need for the new work.
“It will keep us from getting in trouble with the Department of Ecology,” said Mark Storey, Whitman County Public Works director.
Since the existing pond has no cover, much of what is collected is precipitation.
“The single biggest problem is the pond is open to rainwater,” said Storey.
The new tanks are to be built at the site of the existing pond – once its contact water is all evaporated this summer, or pumped out completely.
The new, mostly underground tanks are to collect water from the garbage, to later be evaporated from a new 14x32-foot covered pond or to be pumped to a tanker truck and taken to the wastewater treatment plant.
Ideally, all of the contact water will be evaporated in the new pond.
“It’s been a headache,” said Nails of the current pond. “We’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, it’s gathered so much rain and snow.”
Construction on the new tanks and pond would be later this year, once the old pond is cleared.
“I hope to have as much evaporated as possible, so we’ll start in fall, when there is not much water in it,” Nails said.
Overall, once complete, the project promises to save time and money.
“We’ll be dealing with only 10,000 gallons per year vs. a couple hundred thousand,” said Storey.
“If we’ve got the tanks, we can just kind of forget about it,” Nails said.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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