Elmer City plans lean toward own plant

The town of Elmer City currently has no plan to upgrade its sewage pump station, which it will need to by spring if it is to continue sending sewage to Coulee Dam.

The issue came up at the town’s last council meeting when two members of Coulee Dam’s council and two of its engineers informed Elmer City that they needed to update their pumping station by March of next year when Coulee Dam’s new wastewater treatment plant goes online.

If the new sewer plant went online now, “it would fail,” Elmer City Mayor Gail Morin stated last week. “It may not immediately fail, but it would fail.”

When Coulee Dam’s new plant is operational, Elmer City’s pumping station will have to pump sewage 20 feet higher, but its present pump station will not do that. Lines would back up and manholes would overflow, according to an engineering report commissioned by Indian Health Services.

Morin stated that it would cost Elmer City more than $500,000 to put in a new pump station that would meet pump capacity requirements for the new Coulee Dam plant.

Coulee Dam officials had stated that if Elmer City didn’t have the money to put in a new pumping station they might be willing to loan it the money.

“I am not comfortable with that,” Morin stated.

Elmer City was informed of the need for an enhanced pumping capacity in a letter from Coulee Dam’s town attorney, Mick Howe, back in July. The letter was misfiled, however, and it isn’t clear how many council members knew of its contents.

The town council has so far not made any decision on a new pumping station.

Attending the town council meeting last month from Coulee Dam were council members Gayle Swagerty and David Schmidt and engineers Kurt Holland and Daniel Cowger from Varela & Associates.

They provided a brief overview of how Coulee Dam’s wastewater treatment plant project was doing and emphasized the need for Elmer City to install a new pump station.

Elmer City’s current pumps are old.

Morin emphasized that the matter was up to the town council.

A second issue with the existing pump station is a “septic” issue (odor) that occurs when the sewer line is not pumping full. Elmer City wastewater is gathered through gravity-fed sewer mains and pumped from station one through a 6-inch force main 7,200 feet to Lone Pine pump station two, where it is then pumped 6,500 feet through an 8-inch main to the town of Coulee Dam, where it is treated.

Elmer City public works director Jimmer Tillman said the odor issue could be resolved by putting water in the 8-inch system so it would flush out any retention in the larger line.

Schmidt, in his comments, said that Elmer City was a “partner” in the Coulee Dam project.

The two communities have argued whether Elmer City was a “customer” or “partner” over the years.

It brought a response last week from Mayor Morin, who stated, “I didn’t sign off on anything. They didn’t consult us.”

The two communities are in year 42 of a 50-year cooperative agreement. Elmer City’s sewage accounts for about 21 percent of the current flow into the Coulee Dam plant.

Elmer City has aggressively been working to put in its own wastewater treatment plant and has been working with Indian Health Services on an “alternative” study to compare the benefits, if any, of placing its own plant in Elmer City to continuing to work with Coulee Dam. (See separate story).