Twenty-seven may be young for an adult, but for the Newberry Wastewater Treatment Plant that means the equipment is getting up in years.

City council gave the go-ahead Tuesday night for the utilities department to continue pursuing a plan of rehabilitation and expansion for the Bush River facility.

Dedicated in 1981, the facility that serves all of the city, along with some processing of wastewater for the Newberry County Water and Sewer Authority and others has already undergone some fixes.

We “had a contractor on site in the nick of time,” City Manager Eric Budds said of the replacement of the three screw pumps in 2007. Budds said one of the pumps was out of service, one was “limping” along and both of those operating had leaks. The day the contractor showed up to install the bypass system in preparation for a replacement of the critical equipment; all three failed.

All of this work, included in “Phase I” of the project, is being undertaken just to maintain the plant's current 3.22 million gallons per day capacity.

The screw pump replacement came in at just below $1.4 million. Another $1.3 million or so is expected to be spent on the remainder of the rehabilitation planned for Phase I, such as replacing components associated with the aeration pools and clarifiers.

M.B. Kahn Construction won the bid for the next step of work and is set to begin in May or June, finishing in October on the aeration disc replacement. The company also won the bid on the screw pump replacement previously.

Utilities Director Fred Yandle and Budds assured council that after this step is complete they will feel much better about the risk of “plant failure.”

So far, the first step has been paid for out of $2.5 million in capital project sales tax funds that were allocated for the project. The next part, expansion, and what council approved the further planning for, will require a lot more funding-to the tune of $14 million.

Right now, the plant is averaging operating at 71 percent of its capacity, city workers said. Until the rehabilitation work is finished, they feel it could only go about another 10 percent up in capacity with the aging equipment. At 85 percent of capacity, South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control requires that cities have a plan for expansion in place. By 90 percent, the state requires that plan to be in action.

The proposed expansion would add a third aeration basin and clarifier next to the two that are already in operation at the plant. This would bring the plant's operating capacity up by another 1.78 million gallons of wastewater treated daily.

“Barring unprecedented growth” this should last us “many, many years,” Budds told council members.

The cost of expansion, at $14 million, comes in at just about half the cost of building another plant from scratch, city administrators said. However, Budds did say this is “probably the last expansion we can anticipate at Bush River.”

In the case of future growth of the city's population or industry, Yandle said they would likely have to look at a new water treatment site entirely. Where the site would be built would depend on where growth occurred, but it would likely “outfall” into either the Saluda or Broad rivers.

“I think that is the next logical step,” Yandle said.

Yandle's department is currently pursuing having a master sewer plan crafted that would give the city direction for the next 20-25 years in how best to provide this service.

But for now, the city is dissecting how to pay for the $14 million expansion. One place that seems guaranteed is through increased sewer rates on city bills. Through the next couple of years, the utilities department anticipates a 15 percent rate increase overall for the city's sewer rates.

The payments that come in over the cost of operating the system would go into a savings fund, which would later be used to pay any debt service for money borrowed to fund the expansion.

City officials pointed to a study completed by the City of Rock Hill comparing cities across the state. In the study, Newberry's sewer rates were 22nd among 28 cities surveyed. Budds said with the increase, Newberry should expect to move up about four spaces on that list.

The city would have some time to build that savings, as the current expansion schedule is: design by March 2009; DHEC approval in June/July 2009; financing in place summer 2009; bid project in Aug./Sept. 2009; start construction in fall 2009; complete project in fall 2011.

The city is also seeking funding for the expansion from the federal government through economic development administration and congressional assistance. Officials are also set to apply, although they cautioned a slim hope of success, for a Community Development Block Grant from the state.

Budds said the debt for the expansion portion would be issued in the city's budget two years from now. The estimate is that the issued debt will result in approximately $1.25 million of debt service payments per year. City planners anticipate the raised rates and savings fund to cover this cost.

The city's debt service currently stands around $600,000 annually. It would be the year 2012 before all of the current debt comes off the books.