McALLEN – Public Utility Board of Trustees and City Commissioners on Wednesday broke ground on a $56 million expansion for the South Wastewater Treatment Plant that once complete will be able to accommodate McAllen’s growth for decades to come.
The expanded facility will better serve McAllen’s residents with a new safety disinfection processes, more energy efficiencies and a better odor control system. The South Wastewater Treatment Plant, located at 4100 Idela in south McAllen, will also now be equipped with three standby generators to maintain operations and prevent sewer overflows during power outages.
“Water may be the most precious resource we have in McAllen and the Rio Grande Valley and increasing the capacity of the South Wastewater Treatment Plant will ensure McAllen wastewater is cleaned and processed properly,” said Charles Amos, chairman of the McAllen Public Utility Board of Trustees. “The McAllen Public Utility is centered on serving our customers and conserving resources and that’s what we have here today with this facility we are expanding.”
Public Utility Board of Trustees Ernest R. Williams (vice chair), Antonio “Tony” Aguirre, Albert Cardenas and Veronica V. Whitacre (city commissioner and ex-officio) attended the groundbreaking along with MPU General Manager Mark Vega and City Manager Roel “Roy” Rodriguez. Texas Water Development Board Member Bech Bruun was also present at the ceremony.
The treatment plant expansion will be able to process the wastewater for 8,500 average homes in the city. It will be able to handle about 10 million gallons a day. The primary purpose of the water treatment plant is to remove and properly dispose of pollutants and disinfect the wastewater before it is returned safely to the environment. McAllen also has a North Wastewater Treatment Plant on Sprague Road near 23rd Street.
Read more about the plant here: http://old.mcallen.net/mpu/departments/southplant.aspx
Funding for the project consists of loans and grants through the Texas Water Development Board in a net amount of $45.93 million and $16.7 million from MPU’s bond, sewer depreciation, and sewer capital improvement funds totaling a combined budget of $63.63 million. However, the overall cost of the job was reduced to $56 million after project engineers, Carollo Engineers, worked closely with CSA Construction, the builder, to find several reduction measures.
The South Wastewater Treatment Plant expansion is expected to be completed in three years.