BIXBY - City officials are considering two options to increase Bixby's capacity to treat wastewater in response to a state Department of Environmental Quality consent order issued in June.
The options include constructing a $20 million wastewater-treatment facility or transporting excess waste-water to the Haikey Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant operated by the city of Tulsa and overseen by the Regional Metropolitan Utility Authority.
City Engineer Jared Cottler said Bixby now uses two lagoons to treat wastewater. But as long ago as 2010, the DEQ cited the city for violating its permitted capacity at its north lagoon a half-mile west of Memorial Drive on the north side of the Arkansas River.
The lagoon is designed to handle 0.845 million gallons a day, but Bixby's growing population has led to the city's routinely putting a million gallons or more a day into the lagoon, Cottler said.
"We can't reduce the strength of wastewater to the point that we meet our permit limits," he said.
Cottler said city officials had expected the consent order and planned accordingly.
"We understood it was coming for a period of time," he said. "So we did a wastewater master plan to understand what our options are over the long haul."
In addition, city councilors have approved a stepped rate increase to fund the anticipated costs associated with either option.
Cottler said he does not expect that additional rate increases will be necessary.
As part of the consent order, Bixby is required to construct a pump station and any other facilities necessary to transport excess wastewater from its north lagoon to its south lagoon east of Memorial Drive on the south side of the Arkansas River.
The city also is required to submit by the end of next year an engineering report on whichever option it chooses to address its excess wastewater.
The facilities being built to transport wastewater from the north lagoon to the south lagoon will be used with whichever permanent solution is selected, Cottler said.
Clayton Edwards, director of the city's water and sewer department, said the Haikey Creek plant is permitted to handle 16 million gallons a day but has an actual operating capacity of slightly less.
The facility is used by Tulsa and Broken Arrow, with 54 percent of the wastewater flow coming from Tulsa. The plant treats approximately 10 million gallons of wastewater a day, he said.
Should Bixby begin using the plant, it would pay its share in operational and capital costs, Edwards said.
Kevin Canfield 918-581-8313
kevin.canfield@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Bixby eyes options for wastewater violations
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