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Drummond pursues additional grants as wastewater upgrade faces permitting and cost pressures
Summary
Council heard an extended update from engineer Brad Koon on Sept. 17: the wastewater upgrade design is complete, the town has $3.675M in grants and is seeking about $1.75M more (CBDG application due Oct. 1); EPA/DEQ sludge-placement rules and DEQ requirements around UV disinfection complicate timing and bidding.
At the Sept. 17 Town of Drummond meeting, engineer Brad Koon of Triple Tree Engineering briefed the council on the status of the Wastewater Treatment Facility upgrade and the town’s funding strategy. Koon said the design phase concluded in March 2024 and that rising construction costs prompted staff and engineers to pursue additional grant funding from Rural Development (RD) and the Community Development Block Grant (CBDG) program.
According to the briefing, the project already has $3,675,000 in awarded grant funds and the town is actively seeking about $1,750,000 more, which would bring total grant funding to roughly $5.4 million. Koon told the council that an RD application is in process and that CBDG requires all grant funds to be secured before a project can be bid; the council decided unanimously to pursue the CBDG application, which is due Oct. 1, 2024.
Koon outlined a contingency strategy: list the UV disinfection system as a bid alternate to defer immediate costs but include its plumbing in the base bid. He warned, however, that some funding agencies and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) may insist the UV be included; deferring it could risk regulatory penalties. Koon also flagged that originally identified sludge-placement sites failed to meet EPA/DEQ slope and groundwater requirements. He said he has contacted a nearby landowner (Wetsch) about a potential alternative site and reported offering the same $10,000 payment that had been proposed to prior landowners.
The council discussed logistics and safety: transport of sludge will require flaggers where trucks cross BNSF railway tracks, and bringing power to the chosen sludge site is estimated at about $30,000. The engineer estimated the town could put the project out to bid in February 2025; council members noted that ARPA funds must be used by Dec. 31, 2025, which constrains timing.
Council Person Clute agreed to schedule annual lift-station pump maintenance for November and to follow up at the October meeting. The council also set public hearings related to the CBDG grant process and scheduled a special meeting to finalize grant applications on Sept. 24, 2024.
The update did not include final contractor selections or a completed funding package; council members directed staff and the engineer to continue pursuing the additional grant funding and to return with bid-ready materials and clarified site options.
