On Friday’s Z1077 Up Close Show, host Gary Daigneault spoke with Twentynine Palms Mayor MacArthur Wright and interim City Manager Larry Bowden.
The city has been working towards building a wastewater treatment facility, but the question of cost and location has proven to be a controversial topic. The facility is scheduled for another discussion at tomorrow’s (December 12) City Council meeting, but Bowden provided an update on the project in advance of the meeting.
Larry Bowden: “On the agenda Tuesday night is the Wastewater Treatment Facility. Where do we stand with the sewer system? I know there were questions about the location, and that some neighbors weren’t happy about that.
At the direction of the council at the last meeting, they asked for staff to check on two alternate sites. Three actually, but one of them was so far away the consultants didn’t want to bother with it, because it would put us below the amount of hookups we could get because of the cost.
So they wanted to know the cost of the project and the cost of the annual maintenance, and that is what the staff report is. I think it’s out now. The farther away the plant is, the more it’s going to cost.
Actually, they made all three sites come in at $52 million. The grant we received from the state is $49 million. They say $50 million, but they already took a million from the planning that we put into it. But that’s hard-cost only. The soft-cost is what is identified in the staff report – project management, tribal inspectors, regular inspectors, there’s a lot added into the cost
The way they kept it the same price is that, the further away the facility is, the fewer connections there will be. We are required by the state to have 383, and the lowest one we have is 393, and the highest was 417.”
To hear further discussion about the facility, with a specific focus on costs to the community, and to hear the full conversation, you can listen to the show as a podcast, or below:
