Monterey Still Working To Get New Waste Water Treatment Plant

Monterey is still working through the process of building a new waste water treatment plant.

Water and Sewer Supervisor Duane Jarrett said the current plant on Woodcliff Road was built in 1984. Besides being old, Jarrett said it also doesn’t perform the way it needs to.

“We are really having trouble meeting some of the rules and regulations on the current permit and as new permits come they are going to get more stringent,” Jarrett said. “We have had some violations already due to nitrates and the next issue coming down the pipeline from TDEC is going to be nutrients.”

Jarrett said his current plant can’t treat nitrates or nutrients. Adding on to the issues of getting the new plant, Jarrett said Perdue Farms hasn’t yet signed on to the project.

“I’ve got a small customer base up here and our biggest user is Perdue Farms, which is about 65-percent of my sewer flow,” Jarrett said. I don’t want to build a new plant until they are on board fully because I can’t pay for it without their revenue flow. If they pull out, then I’ve only got the town of Monterey citizens that’s on sewer, which is only about 950 taps to pay for a $7.5 million sewer plant.”

Jarrett wants to build the new plant at the same place where the town’s very first plant was located, which is at the end of Stewart Avenue. That site would discharge into a stream that’s considered the head of Falling Water River and Jarrett said TDEC has questioned that location.

“TDEC is just wanting to check their p’s and q’s on this to make sure we don’t impact the stream, but that’s odd to me because Monterey discharged at that site from 1963 to 1984,” Garrett said. “They are saying it’s not a stream, but a wet weather conveyance. We had a study done by a third party and they said it was a stream, but TDEC is still saying it’s a wet weather conveyance.”

Until TDEC agrees on the stream and Perdue Farms signs on board with the project, it remains in a limbo.

Jarrett said something will need to be done quickly because he currently has some $5 million in grants lined up for the project through USDA Rural Development. Those grants will disappear if Monterey doesn’t break ground by August of 2019.