The Nashville Town Council will conduct a public hearing at Town Hall this Thursday, May 27 at 4 p.m. about applying for funding to bring Brown County State Park onto the town’s water and sewer systems.
In addition to that, the proposed work will remedy longstanding problems at the town’s wastewater treatment plant which prompted the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to step in in the fall of 2019.
Discussions about the state park-town collaboration have been going on among town officials and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, which runs the park, since last spring.
Bringing the two entities into a “regionalization” partnership will enable the town’s utility systems to be more financially stable long-term, Nashville municipal adviser Dax Norton said in December.
The town is applying to the State Revolving Fund for “as much grant money as we possibly can” to do the wastewater work, Norton told the Nashville Utility Service Board on May 19. The estimated total cost for that part of the project is $7.6 million, with the town’s portion being about $6.2 million.
That would pay for sludge system work at the plant, new pipe in areas throughout the collection system where needed, manhole work, a new lift station at Salt Creek Plaza to take on the new sewage, modifications to the Parkview lift station, increasing the size of pipe already in the system to accommodate the higher flow, and other work to be paid for by the DNR.
It is possible that town wastewater customers’ rates may have to go up a little to help pay back any project loans. The rough estimate mentioned at last week’s utility board meeting was $3.
Utility board President Roger Kelso said that he doesn’t want it to come off like the state park connection is causing that increase, though. The town had to do this work on its wastewater plant anyway in order to get into state compliance. The DNR also is kicking in an estimated $1.4 million. “We’re just piggy-backing (the two projects) to get the best rate to do some things overall for the entire system,” Kelso said.
On the water side, the state park’s only source is treating water out of Ogle Lake. The DNR is planning to stop using the lake for that purpose so that it has a more reliable provider through the town. In June 2019, the state park had to be closed for almost a week when flooding caused too much sediment to wash into the lake, making it impossible to treat and use for drinking water.
Final cost estimates on the water project were not available in time for this story. More information will be given at the hearing.
<strong>Wastewater concerns</strong>
The park currently sends about 70 percent of its wastewater to the town for treatment and takes care of the rest on its own. There are two small treatment plants in the park, according to a preliminary engineering report for the project.
Under this plan, those in-park treatment facilities would no longer be used. The 6-inch sewer main running along State Road 46 East, which serves the state park and other Nashville customers, would be replaced with a 10-inch main.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management inspected the state park’s facilities twice in 2020, and both showed evidence of sanitary sewer overflows that were not reported or noticed, portions of the wastewater treatment system not operating properly or out of service, the plant not being properly maintained, and “effluent quality issues,” the engineering report said. There was also evidence of water getting into the system that wasn’t actually wastewater, the engineering report said.
The town has been dealing with some of the same problems. Council members have known for years about I/I, inflow and infiltration, in which water is getting into the wastewater system when it isn’t supposed to be. Town staff also have reported seepage out of wastewater pipes.
In October 2019, the town’s wastewater treatment plant was cited for seven environmental violations. It was required to come up with a plan for how to remedy all those problems, which the town had been working on for months before the state park approached town leaders about working together.
<strong>Other expansions?</strong>
The town also has a sanitary sewer master plan, separate from this project, which maps out possible expansions of town sewer service to areas that don’t have it yet, such as Annandale Estates, Town Hill and other neighborhoods near Nashville.
No sewer expansions except to the state park are included in this funding application.
At a public meeting in June, the Nashville Utility Service Board plans to learn more about the sanitary sewer master plan, which was created before the board existed.
Two women who live in Annandale, who attended the May 19 USB meeting, asked what they could do to help get sewer to their neighborhood, and were told that they could gather more solid numbers about how many of their neighbors would actually be interested in sewer. They said they planned to start a petition.
