The Peru Gazette

Existing Wastewater Pretreatment and Treatment buildings (Peru Gazette File Photo)

The Cross Street Water-Sewer-Parks Department building would become a storage building. (Peru Gazette File Photo) 

Peru, NY—The Saturday, January 18, Press-Republican legal page included a request for bids for upgrades to Peru’s wastewater treatment plant.  After contractors submit bids on February 25, it will be up to the town board to decide if the town can afford all the work envisioned or must reduce the project scope. Deficiencies in the plant’s disinfection and preliminary treatment processes resulted in the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) mandating upgrades. In 2023, Peru signed a consent order agreeing to begin construction by July 25, 2025, and complete it by May 1, 2028.

AES Northeast, the engineering firm designing and supervising the project, presented three options to the town board. One included plant upgrades, a new department administrative building with a locker room, bathroom, lab, and showers, a 5-bay garage, and several upgrades to the village’s collection system. The second option did not include the village collection upgrades, and the third option did not include the 5-bay garage. The board decided to seek bids on the second option.

The Water-Sewer-Parks Department operates in a decades-old Cross Street building that once housed the highway department. Department Superintendent Courtney Tetrault says more storage is needed, the offices are cramped, and there are no lockers or showers. Employees often drive personnel vehicles home to clean up after working on a sewer line break.

At a January 7 workshop, AES stated they reduced the projected cost to $21 million with 70% grant funding. AES previously projected the cost to be $22.6 million with 60% grant funding. At that level, the sewer district’s approximately 565 users would incur a $320,000 annual debt payment or roughly $451 per EDU (Equivalent Dwelling Unit). Following the workshop,  Town Supervisor Craig Randall requested updated detailed cost figures reflecting AES’s calculations. Randall wants to translate the projected cost into the cost per thousand dollars assessed value for district dwellings. 

General bid specifications in the Press-Republican legal ad included site work, demolishing the existing treatment plant and administration buildings, construction of a new administrative and treatment building, constructing a 5-bay vehicle storage building, modifications to the existing solids handling building and secondary treatment building, construction of a new a filtrate pump, construction of stormwater treatment area, site fill and grading, paving, and miscellaneous site improvement. 

AES will conduct a pre-bid conference with interested contractors on Wednesday, January 29, at 10 a.m. at the Peru Town Hall.