The Mosheim Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted to Wednesday night to pursue constructing a partially new wastewater treatment plant for the town’s sewer system.
The Lick Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant was constructed around 1985 according to town officials, and relies on outdated trickling filters in bio-towers at the current plant to treat wastewater.
Engineers with Cannon & Cannon Inc. presented a draft report on the status of the town’s wastewater plant, and what improvements are needed.
The town’s current plant has fallen into disrepair in some regards, and only one of two bio-towers are currently functioning at the facility. Pumps, valves, and filters are broken at the facility, steel is corroding, and algae is growing in the chlorine contact basin at the plant which is hampering the disinfection processes.
The capacity of the facility when both towers are functioning is about 1 million gallons per day on average, and the town is about to that limit now.
The plant is having difficulties treating nitrogen and phosphorus effectively to keep the plant within state set limits. From 2023 through 2025 the plant had 197 cases of exceedances over state limits, mainly due to nitrogen.
Josh West with Cannon & Cannon said that the plant was “never designed” to treat wastewater at the limits now required by the state.
The firm presented three long-term options to the Mosheim board for its consideration to solve issues at the sewer plant.
One option included constructing about 15 miles of line and associated pumps to pump wastewater to the Greeneville Water Commission’s treatment plant at cost of $36 million to $50 million, without factoring in the cost that would be charged to Mosheim by the Greeneville Water Commission for taking the wastewater.
Another option was to attempt to repair the failing components at the current plant, and place other improvements at the plant at a cost of $19 million to $26 million. However, that option would not solve the plant’s capacity issue, and other decentralized systems would have to be used to expand capacity. Those systems would cost up to $50 million more dollars, and push total costs to over $70 million.
The board elected to go with a third option that would see components from the existing plant, such as digesters and solids handling operations, continue to be used, while the bio-towers would be replaced with a more modern biological treatment method that would allow the plant to expand and come in line with state requirements. A Sequencing Batch Reactor, an activated sludge wastewater treatment system that treats sewage in batches, combining equalization, aeration, and clarification in a single tank, was presented to the board as a possible alternative that could be constructed at the current plant site. A land purchase would not be required, and the new treatment system would increase the plant’s capacity to about 1.5 million gallons of flow per day on average, allowing for future growth in the town. The option was estimated to cost $24 million to $33 million.
West said that funding options, including grants and loans that carry principal forgiveness, would likely be available from the state and federal governments for the project.
When asked by Mosheim Mayor Rick Cunningham about a possible timeline for the project, West said it a five year timeline would be attainable. He stated several state-required environmental studies, one of which takes a full year of sample gathering, and the creation of specific engineering plans, would be required as the process moved forward. West noted that the town could move forward with engineering plans and environmental studies before beginning any construction as the town works to secure funding.
Alderman James Foshie said that the option to try to repair all the existing issues at the current sewer plant would not solve the sewer system’s capacity issues, or allow for any future growth. Therefore, he supported pursuing the third option, which would solve the system’s capacity issue and provide flexibility or further expansion in the future.
Cunningham said that he felt the first option of piping the the wastewater to the Greeneville Water Commission’s plant was not feasible, and that the second option would simply result in the town putting new parts on an old system and still being stuck with an old system. He said he supported the third option of constructing a partially new plant.
Aldermen Marc Campbell and Stacy Carter agreed, and all three voted in support of pursing the partially new plant. Alderman Matthew Solomon was absent from the meeting.
