MOUNT VERNON — The Knox County Commissioners received an update on the proposed Centerburg wastewater plant Monday afternoon.
On hand representing Centerburg were Village Administrator Phil Lohmeyer and Charles Coghlan and Brian Coghlan of Bird and Bull of Columbus, which is working on the project for Centerburg. Jim Henry, Knox County engineer, was also in attendance as an observer.
“The purpose of this meeting is, we are going through what I refer to as the public information process. Because Centerburg has a working agreement with the county for service of part of the Countryside Meadows area, then we are basically in an intergovernmental agreement and that will continue,” said Charles Coghlan.
Coghlan told the commissioners the first step of the project was to define the Centerburg service area. He showed the commissioners a map demonstrating the current service area, the new service area, the location of the old wastewater facility and the new one.
Coghlan also told the commissioners the old lift station would not be used.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to use it because it isn’t deep enough,” he said in response to Commissioner Allen Stockberger’s comment that it was only 10 years old. “We will probably use the pieces and parts, but that is something we will have to work out with [the board of commissioners] because it’s your lift station.”
The commissioners then looked over a map of the 24-acre parcel of land on Lock Road, acquired by the village for the new plant.
“It was a little far from the village,” he said. “But on the other hand, it did give us good access to the North Fork of the Licking River. What we have developed is a new trunk sewer from this existing pump station, following a ditch and picking up a pump station behind the high school, coming down to a new pump station with a force main out to the new wastewater plant. These are the improvements required for permit requirements. This will be an 8-inch line that will increase capacity from 200,000 gallons to 300,000 a day.”
Coghlan then showed commissioners a map defining the proposed service area for the wastewater plant.
“This is the area we would exercise as the management agency,” he explained. “What I mean by that is, we would be the lead entity for sanitary issues within that region. That doesn’t mean we are going to knock anybody off their current podium. It means that Jim [Henry] is doing stormwater management in that area. Knox County Water and Sewer District is currently doing agricultural practices there which would logically continue. The Knox County Health Department exercises their responsibilities and duties for home site systems and I don’t think we want to take that over. On the other hand, if you do have a project that comes in and wants to propose an on-site wastewater treatment system, we would have the first right of refusal on the system.”
A public hearing will be held Wednesday at 7 p.m. in council chambers.
