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June 22, 2005
Plant may reopenContractors say it's too early to determine causeByRecord-Eagle staff writer TRAVERSE CITY - The county's damaged septage treatment plant could be partially reopened by early next month - but no one's offering answers on why the month-old building collapsed. The county's water and sewer committee Tuesday agreed to hire an "independent expert" to determine why part of the $7.8 million building caved in Saturday and took steps to least partially open the plant within the next few weeks so area waste haulers will have somewhere to dump septic tank waste. A six-sided concrete storage vault at the plant partially collapsed sometime early Saturday morning, spewing an estimated 150,000 gallons of partially treated septic tank waste across the Ahlberg Road property near the county Road Commission garage in Garfield Township. About 20,000 gallons of septic tank waste was pumped out of two stormwater drainage lagoons on the site Saturday and trucked to the regional sewer plant on Boardman Lake. Most of the effluent was soaked up by the ground, officials said. County officials said a "structural failure" led to the collapse. But representatives of both primary contractors for the project - the Gourdie-Fraser engineering firm and Christman Co. construction - said it was too early to determine why it caved in. "We don't have an idea at this point what the cause is," said Jim Minster, an engineer with Gourdie-Fraser. "We do know there was no explosion." Christman Co. vice-president Scott Jones said he was "confident" contractors will be able to determine what caused the collapse, but wouldn't estimate when. "At this point, it's purely speculation to say anything," Jones said. Contractors said they expect to know later this week when the plant could be partially reopened, but had no idea how much it might cost to get the plant in that kind of shape. The county also will need approval from its city and township partners at the sewer plant to treat the septic waste there. Sewer plant manager Scott Blair said there is sufficient plant capacity to accept the septage waste for the time being. The committee also recommended to the Board of Public Works to hire an independent expert - likely another engineering firm - that was not associated with the project to check the construction and the integrity of the remaining buildings at the plant. See Related Stories: Septage plant 'structural failure' is investigated - June 21, 2005 Burst tank rocks GT County's new septage plant - June 19, 2005
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Record-Eagle/Douglas Tesner
