Manti accepts bids on project 

to control sewer lagoon levels

 

By Suzanne Dean

Publisher

9-24-2020

 

 

MANTI—The Manti City Council has accepted bids totaling just over $447,000 to enable the city to control its sewer lagoon levels through “land application” of lagoon water.

The project is part of an effort that has been going on for nearly eight years designed to handle population growth in the city without building new lagoons.

At a meeting Sept. 2, the council accepted a bid of $324,890 from Madsen Excavating of Mayfield for construction of a chlorination building in one corner of the lagoon site near the Manti City Sports Complex.

The Madsen bid also covers pipe to carry water from the lagoons, once chlorinated, to a 50-acre city-owned parcel of land about a third of a mile north of the lagoons.

The council also accepted a bid of $122,349 from Southwest Sprinkler Supply of Cedar City for a pivot sprinkler that would rotate in a quarter circle, sprinkling the lagoon water on the city-owned land.

The Madsen bid was a little higher than the engineer’s estimate. But the engineer had set up a contingency fund, and the bid was under the estimate with the contingency factored in. The Southwest Sprinker Supply bid was more than $25,000 under the engineer’s estimate.

The total budget for both components of the project, minus the bid amounts, will leave a $65,000 surplus, Garrick Willden of Jones and Demille, one of he project engineers, told the council.

“We’ll have some funds in our escrow account for Phase III or whatever you think is the next step,” City Manager Kent Barton told the city council.

At an earlier city council meeting, Willden explained that during the summer, evaporation takes a lot of water out of the lagoons.

“But during winter, there’s no evaporation. Oftentimes they [the lagoons] freeze over. So you have to have enough storage capacity to make it through the winter,” he said.

“You want to get rid of enough water throughout the summer through land application that your [lagoon] cells are drawn down enough that the winter…water can just build up and you apply it again in the summer.”

At the Sept. 9 meeting, Willden said he wanted to start construction of the chlorination building and piping immediately with a goal of applying enough water to land in summer 2021 to free up 3 to 4 feet of space in one of the lagoon cells.

In other discussion, the council voted to stick with its current ordinance, which requires people living outside the city limits to deed three-fourths of one share of seasonal irrigation water to the city before being permitted to connect to city culinary water.

Councilman Gary Chidester said the requirement used to be one full share. But it was dropped to .75 of one share. “If anything, I would favor raising it” back to one share, he said.

Councilman Darren Dyreng said it might be possible to reduce the requirement if someone had “deeded shares,” or year-round shares of well water. Making an allowance for deeded water, as opposed to irrigation shares, would require revising the ordinance.

The council directed Barton to deny a request from Carson Howell for a reduction in the number of certified shares, or irrigation shares, he must deed to the city in order to receive a culinary connection.

At the meeting, the council also reviewed the budget. It learned that although only 8 percent of the year had elapsed, the city had received 48 percent of its budget for “intergovernmental” revenue.

That’s because of $321,000 that has come in from the federal CARES Act, Barton said.

“That money wasn’t in the [original] budget,” Barton said. “We’ll only spend it for things we’re allowed to spend it for. The rest, we’ll have to return.”

A resident, Katelyn Grant, asked if any of the money could be spent to upgrade the kitchen in the senior citizen’s center. She said there are breaks in the surfaces of the floor and counters “aren’t sanitary.”