Rehoboth approves immediate repairs at treatment plant

The Rehoboth Beach commissioners unanimously approved an emergency resolution to pay for roof repairs at the city’s wastewater treatment plant after the roof to the pretreatment building collapsed in early October.

Exactly how much will be spent is still undetermined; the city has already spent $22,000 to demolish the damaged roof and on Oct. 21, the commissioners passed the emergency resolution allowing the city to bypass the competitive bidding process for the repairs.

“Just get it done,” Mayor Sam Cooper said.

Cooper said funding for the project will either come from the city’s wastewater budget, where money is annually reserved for plant repairs, and the city’s general fund. Besides a new roof, the resolution also calls for upgrades to the building’s HVAC, lighting and electrical systems. The work was to be done as part of the city’s planned $10 million in upgrades to the plant, but the roof collapse has sped up the process. Cooper said the project will likely involve several contractors and contracts will not have to be approved by the city commissioners.

Assistant plant manager Bill Woods said rust and old age caused the roof collapse. The pretreatment building is used at the start of the treatment process to filter out what Woods called rags and grit, solids and sand. He said the facility uses screens to catch physical objects before they can clog pipes as the the water is treated. The process gives off odors and releases gases that caused corroded the roof. Cooper said the city knew the roof was in need of replacement, but high winds and storms earlier this month hastened its collapse.

“I guess it couldn’t wait another year or so,” Woods said.

Woods said the roof was the original from when the plant was built in the mid-1980s. He said plants around the country have open-air pretreatment buildings because of the smell and the gasses that corroded the plant’s roof, but maintenance is much more difficult during cold winter months without a roof, he said.

Despite the collapse, the building is still operating as normal. Woods said no equipment was lost and the existing electrical systems were still working after the roof collapse. No one was in the building at the time, and most of the problem occurred in the middle of the building, where no vital equipment was located.

“We were fortunate it happened like it did,” Woods said.

City engineers have proposed fast-tracking planned upgrades to the plant’s effluent filtration system, which failed this summer, sending sludge into the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal.

The plant upgrades were included in the $52.5 million ocean outfall project, which will see the city’s treated effluent pumped and discharged in the ocean instead of the canal. A public hearing on permits for the proposed project will held by Rehoboth and Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control at 6 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 15, at Rehoboth Elementary School.