The newly released state capital budget included Kenai’s top capital priority: upgrades to the city’s aging wastewater treatment plant.
City Manager Rick Koch says Kenai’s project is one of only four included in the $4.2 million allocated to the municipal matching grants program statewide.
Koch: “It is a 70 percent state share and then a 30 percent match from the sponsor, which in this case would be us. In round numbers there is a $1 million line item in the 2017 capital budget for the City of Kenai for wastewater treatment plant improvement.”
One proposed improvement to the nearly 30-year-old facility located at the end of Spruce Street include implementing more energy efficient components.
Koch: “We estimate that we could save up to $100,000 a year in energy consumption costs by using modern control systems, modern variable drives, motors on the blowers. The largest utility bill that the city has is the wastewater treatment plant.”
The wastewater treatment plant was previously included in one of Governor Sean Parnell’s capital budgets but was cut because funding to the municipal matching grant program decreased that year.
Koch says with just four municipal projects allocated in the program this year, he feels more confident facility upgrades funding could make it through the legislative process intact.
If approved, the improvements to Kenai’s wastewater treatment plant could begin in July 2016.