Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Whitman County Public Works will go out for bids March 20 for new effluent tanks at the solid waste and recycling facility south of Colfax.
The project is expected to start this summer with county crews beginning preparation work in late July for a contractor to begin Aug. 15.
The two 10,000-gallon tanks will take the place of one 90x90 foot, 180,000-gallon evaporation pond which serves to evaporate all water – drained off from the floor of the waste transfer station.
“We need that pond mostly empty, so we'll need to wait until late summer (for construction),” said Mark Storey, County Public Works director.
The water, called contact water, is now stored in the pond and evaporated off, or taken by tanker truck to the wastewater treatment facility in Colfax.
The estimated $300,000-$500,000 project will be paid out of the county's capital improvements fund.
Because the existing pond's lower liner is nearly 20 years old, its integrity cannot be guaranteed, which prompts the need for the new work.
Since the existing pond has no cover, much of what is collected is precipitation.
The new tanks are to be built at the site of the existing pond once the 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.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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