The Fayette County Commission is expected Thursday night to select CH2M Hill as its on-call consulting engineering firm for the county water system.
CH2M Hill was one of nine firms that submitted bids to the county to handle the work and was the unanimous recommendation of the evaluation committee that reviewed the proposals. CH2M Hill has the familiarity of having worked with the water system this summer to ameliorate the taste and odor issues that plagued the county’s drinking water for weeks.
Fallout from the taste and odor problem resulted in an inspection by state environmental officials that cited the county for violating 10 water quality rules and ultimately led to the demotion of Water System Director Tony Parrott to a treatment plant operator position.
If the contract is approved, CH2M Hill wil be tasked with assessing the water treatment infrastructure and equipment so it can recommend improvements. The company also will assess and recommend improvements to “current processes, procedures and plant operations,” according to a memo circulated to county commissioners prior to the meeting.
The firm will also be in charge of conducting water quality studies and managing the dredging of Lake Peachtree and the county’s annual water line extension contract. Previously those services have been provided by Mallett Consulting Inc.
Commissioners are also expected to vote on a $165,000 contract with Gullett Sanitation Services to remove sludge from two lagoons at the Crosstown Water Treatment Plant. The lagoons have not been dredged in 10 years, county officials have said.
The Crosstown plant was fingered as the smelly water culprit because employees would recycle water back into the treatment process that had been expelled from the plant when filters were backwashed.
The inspection by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division also found a number of equipment deficiencies at the Crosstown plant that need to be repaired or replaced.
In other business, the commission will hear a presentation on the proposed widening of McDonough Road from Ga. Highway 54 to U.S. Highway 19 in Clayton County.
Construction on the six-mile project is expected to start in 2019, but that date is tentative at this point, according to DOT officials. The project will add three new traffic lights to the road, eliminate dangerous curves and also replace the Flint River and Hurricane Creek bridges.
Once complete, the road will be expanded from two to four lanes with bike lanes in both directions and five-foot wide sidewalks on each side of the road.
