Baxter Wastewater Renovation Nearing Start

A lot of interest in the bidding process to begin renovations this fall on Baxter’s Wastewater Treatment Plant.

City Engineer Thomas Bennett said the plant is showing its age as it was built in the late 1980s. He said the plant needs more capacity to properly support the town. Bennett said the project is expected to begin construction within the next two to three months and will take about a year to fully complete.

“There’s components being added to this project that will enhance reliability of the – of the treatment process and also providing for additional redundancy in their treatment process which is good for the – you know, for the treatment plant, and that’s good for the community,” Bennett said.

Bids are due August 29. Bennett said the project has taken several years to get to this point because it is funded by the USDA’s Rural Development program.

“There’s many different steps when you do a project like this with not only the state of Tennessee, the Department of Environment and Conservation, but as well as the funding agency with USDA, so there’s many steps that are, you know, take place with a project like this, and so it be – not be uncommon for these projects to take a good period of time.”

Bennett said that Baxter will likely have to expand the wastewater plant again in the future as it continues to grow.

“It’s not uncommon for these projects to happen, you know, every so many years,” Bennett said. “And so I would anticipate with the growth that Baxter’s experiencing that there will be many different capacity increases as well as, you know, continued modernization of these facilities over the coming years.”

Bennett said that operations of the plant will improve because of the various aspects that will be modernized once the work is complete.