Staff writer
The City of Marion is installing a new sewer lift station, replacing sewer mains, lines, and manholes in Jex Addition as well as on Santa Fe St. west of the train tracks up to Vine St., and modifying sewer lines east of the tracks on Billings St., all to the tune of $526,350.
EBH and Associates engineer Darin Neufeld said that figure includes Middle Creek Corporation’s sum of $432,350, a grant administrator fee of $18,000, and EBH’s fee of $76,000.
City Clerk Angela Lange also said the city received a Community Development Block Grant that will pay for $180,000 of the price, leaving the total cost to the city at $346,350.
“We also received a loan from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment that can go up to $433,625,” Lange said. “It’s part of the Kansas Water Pollution Control Revolving Fund. It’s a 20-year loan with 2.43 percent interest in which we will make 40 total payments twice a year.”
Neufeld said EBH and Associates is working alongside Middle Creek Corporation out of Peabody as they replace multiple severely damaged concrete lines.
“The original concrete lines are all eaten up by the gas from the sewage,” Neufeld said. “None of them are in very good shape.”
Many residents were having backflow problems because of collapsed sewer lines, he said. Some lines also had tree roots obstructing flow and most were originally installed so shallowly that drainage was already poor.
He said sewer lines would all be replaced up to where the right-of-way meets individual home lines.
“Middle Creek is replacing just shy of 4,000 feet of sewer lines,” Neufeld said. “The project should be done about two months after the sewer lift station is complete.”
Neufeld described the sewer lift as a giant pump station that lifts the sewage from a depth of 21 feet to the gravity drainage level, which is a depth of four feet.
Sewage will then drain by force of gravity to another sewage lift station by the Cottonwood River near 3rd St. that sends it to the sewage ponds south of Marion.