Zeeland wastewater plant investing $2M in new building

ZEELAND — After receiving approval from City Council on Monday, a project to invest $2 million in the Zeeland Clean Water Plant will move forward.

The Zeeland Board of Public Works’ wastewater utility will construct a new building for biosolids processing with the funds, replacing equipment that was 30 years old and showing its age.

“We are keeping it pieced together right now until this process is done,” Doug Engelsman, Zeeland Clean Water Plant superintendent, told council Monday.

In the wastewater treatment process, solid waste is separated from the incoming sewage water and sent to aerobic digesters, which reduce the waste organically using living organisms.

Then the sewage sludge is processed in the biosolids facility so it can be recycled as fertilizer on farms.

With the construction of the new building, the ZBPW will put in a new piece of processing machinery called a gravity belt thickener which they hope will result in a thicker end product.

Because disposal of the sludge waste costs the utility by the gallon, the more reduced and thicker the final product, the greater the savings.

Only replacing the thickener would have cost about half a million dollars, Engelsman told the council, but the utility determined there were several benefits to replacing the whole building.

One such benefit is building with future expansions of the plant in mind. The new facility will be large enough to house a second piece of dewatering machinery if the utility expands in the future.

Electrical systems in the current building have also been damaged over the years, Engelsman said.

The Clean Water Plant recently underwent a $14 million expansion that was jointly funded by the city of Zeeland, Zeeland Township and Holland Township. The expansion was completed in 2017 and doubled the wastewater plant’s capacity.

Grand River Construction was awarded the $1.6 million construction contract. Engineering and contingency fees bring the total investment to just over $2 million.

— Contact reporter Carolyn Muyskens at cmuyskens@hollandsentinel.com and follow her on Twitter at @cjmuyskens.