Centerville council advances wastewater plant upgrade design, schedules work session on outfall options

The Centerville Town Council on Aug. 7 approved a $2,446,672 contract amendment to fund full design of an upgraded wastewater treatment plant and heard staff updates on studies for a proposed outfall into the Corsica River.

The project team presented a preferred membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology and preliminary results from a computer mixing study for a proposed outfall extension. Council and staff agreed to hold a work session at 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 4 to review irrigation‑versus‑outfall alternatives, funding scenarios, and implications for an in‑progress rate study.

Neil, a KIPP representative who presented the technical update, said the town had submitted an amended preliminary engineering report (PER) to the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) after MDE asked for additional justification of the selected alternative. He told the council the project team completed cold‑weather water‑quality sampling on the Corsica River and is doing warm‑weather sampling now, and that a computer mixing model has produced preliminary (not final) results on bacteria and temperature impacts of a proposed 1 million‑gallon‑per‑day outfall alignment.

Why it matters: the council is weighing two broad approaches to reducing permit exceedances and meeting future demand —…