The downtown Tallassee streetscape project is the most visible ongoing project for the City of Tallassee, but it is not the only one.
Other projects, years in the making, are in various stages including the renovations to the wastewater treatment plant, replacing cast iron gas lines, upgrading water lines and the water filter treatment plant. CDG engineer Jeff Harrison continues assisting the city through the various projects to help ensure work meets state and federal guidelines.
Harrison said work at the city’s sewage lagoon is well underway and work will be completed by the end of the year.
“The contractor is working very diligently,” Harrison said. “They have been working on a lot of piping that is coming from where the Laney lift station project ended, bringing it to the southern lagoon. They are putting in the lift station right across from Neptune.”
Harrison materials are being delivered to upgrade the aeration process and the foundation of a building for the project is now complete.
The Alabama Department of Environmental Management has recently inspected the city’s lagoons and found no deficiencies according to Harrison and Tallassee Mayor Sarah Hill.
The $4 million project will renovate the sewage treatment lagoons to get decades more use from them considering the current growth rate of Tallassee. The lagoons are also under a consent decree from ADEM and must be rectified by the end of the year to avoid penalties. This project will solve the issues noted in the decree.
“We are going to try to keep pushing this project so we can get that lagoon up and running toward the end of the year,” Harrison said.
Little Road water project
Water pressure and volume issues are an ongoing issue in the areas of Little Road and Katy Lane. The water lines installed decades ago are too small for the number of residences in the area.
With $200,000 in financial help of the Elmore County Commission, the City of Tallassee approved the $280,000 project earlier this year.
“The contractor mobilized last week and started bringing in pipe.,” Harrison said. “We have pipe on the site. They are doing the tie-ins to the existing lines.”
Harrison said Singleton Contracting is expected to finish its work by the end of June. He said contractors will first install the pipe, pressure test it and complete the tie-ins to residences.
“They do a great job with cleanup and working with residents and making sure everyone is satisfied,” Harrison said. “They stay on top of it.”
Gas line projects
The City of Tallassee received a $9.7 million federal grant in April to replace cast iron gas lines in the Elmore County portion of the city. But work was already in progress with funds from a 2020 bond issue. Harrison said work has been underway on the first phase of the project.
“The contractor has already laid a pretty substantial bit of pipe, about 2,700 linear feet,” Harrison said.
Surveying and design work was already underway when the city received notice of the grant and the work on Phase 2 will continue with bond funding. Further cast iron line replacement projects in the Elmore County portion of Tallasse will be funded by the $9.7 million grant.
“We are going through the environmentals at this time,” Harrison said. “With it being grant funds, they have their strict procedures.”
Harrison said the federal government has assigned a consultant to the grant who will go over the process of design, bidding and construction to meet requirements of the grant. The grant covers administration, design and construction of the replacement of cast iron gas lines.
Hill said the city plans to apply for a similar grant to help fund the replacement of cast iron gas lines in the Tallapoosa County portion of Tallassee.
Water filter treatment plant
The City of Tallassee’s water filter treatment plant is aging. Harrison said work needs to be done to the plant’s piping gallery system to begin to renovate the aging system. Harrison and Hill are hopeful the city will not have to fully fund the project.
“This has been turned into a state revolving fund loan with ADEM,” Harrison said. “We turned it in last year. Due to the number of applications turned in last year, this application got rolled over into this year's process. We are hoping some funding has been passed over to ADEM.”
Harrison said award announcements should be coming soon.
Hill said the $9.7 million grant will allow the city to reallocate some of the bond funding to the water filter treatment plant projects.