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Council hears wastewater plant update; membrane cleaning delayed pending parts
Summary
Consultants and operators told the City of Bellevue council that membrane cleaning at the wastewater treatment plant is delayed while missing SCADA-actuator switches are expedited, with an anticipated 3–6 week timeline; staff said DEQ has the plant's submittals and water-monitoring results are expected in about two weeks.
City officials and consultants updated the Bellevue City Council on Oct. 14 about ongoing work to restore and reliably operate the town’s wastewater treatment plant.
Christina Gillespie, speaking for Great West Engineering, said she was supporting Andrew Kimball and staff while Kimball is out of the country. Chris Johnson, a plant operator, told the council the membrane-cleaning process could not be completed because the SCADA-to-actuator switches needed to run the pumps were not provided by the vendor. "We are waiting for those parts to come in still. I have a timeline of 3 to 6 weeks," Johnson said. He added the parts were expedited and that the vendor had been engaged to complete the cleaning once the components arrive.
Johnson also addressed neighborhood odor reports and said staff had not received formal complaints through public-works channels at the time of the meeting. He described operational fixes already in place, including swapping a peristaltic oxygenation pump and running it continuously to improve conditions: "We're using about 15 gallons a day of that solution, which should be plenty enough to resolve any odor issues," he said.
On regulatory compliance, staff told the council they met with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) two weeks earlier and submitted required materials, including annual reports and reuse-permit paperwork. Staff said monitoring wells near the plant were sampled and results were expected in roughly two weeks; those results will be forwarded to DEQ to help finalize a compliance-agreement schedule.
Council members asked whether winter weather or snow could further delay work; Johnson said most critical systems are indoors and snow would not affect membrane cleaning but could complicate some logistics. Gillespie and staff said more technical questions could be relayed to Andrew Kimball on his return for written responses. The city will continue to track parts shipments, DEQ responses, and sampling results and report back to council as timelines firm up.
