The details
One of the work orders will perform a site evaluation to find the best location to relocate the city’s lift station, City Engineer Beth Jones said during the Sept. 8 City Council meeting. The work order will cost the city $62,000 from the enterprise fund balance, according to the agenda item.
According to previous Community Impact reporting, Bellaire’s lift station, a facility built in 1947 to move sewage or wastewater from a lower to a higher elevation, is dangerous for staff to access because it’s located in a median on Bellaire Boulevard. The city needs to relocate the lift station outside the median, as it was found to be on its last leg.
“We need to spend a little bit of time doing some underground utility investigations to figure out where the best place to locate it would be,” Jones said.
The second approved work order, which costs $83,700 from the enterprise fund balance, will work on figuring out the best path to connect the city’s wastewater to Houston’s wastewater treatment plant.
Community Impact reached out to Jones on when the work orders will be completed, but did not receive a response by press time.
The background
Bellaire residents voted in November to approve two separate bond referendums totaling $70 million to fund stormwater and wastewater projects.
One of the wastewater projects, for $30 million, includes demolishing Bellaire's current wastewater treatment plant and connecting it to Houston's.
According to previous Community Impact reporting, the city’s wastewater treatment plant is deemed too old, in poor shape and “well beyond its useful life.”
For example, the city’s plant has subsided or sunk 6 feet in the last 50 years. This has led to electrical equipment, chemical feed equipment, final clarifiers and disinfection tanks being below Harris County’s 500-year floodplain map, which shows what areas are at risk for flooding from a bayou, creek or other waterway overflowing during a 500-year flood.
Chris Malinowski, a project manager at HDR Engineering, an engineering firm that conducted a condition assessment on the city's wastewater treatment plant, said the firm recommends the city decommission its current wastewater treatment plant and connect wastewater to the city of Houston’s. Connecting to the city of Houston would cost the city $11.48 million, according to previous Community Impact reporting.
In July, Houston and Bellaire came to an official agreement that included Houston agreeing to treat Bellaire’s wastewater over the next 100 years. City Manager Sharon Citino said, although this isn’t connected to the city’s decision on what to do with its wastewater plant, the agreement gives the city a clearer picture of what the city of Bellaire should do.
