Kingfisher city commissioners, acting on behalf of the city and the public works authority, formally accepted a $4.328 million loan from the Oklahoma Water Resources Board on Wednesday to rehabilitate the city’s aging wastewater treatment plant.

The project includes improvements to the headworks, sequencing batch reactor equipment, ultra violet disinfection, as well as pump and laboratory building work.

These improvements will allow the city to maintain compliance with water quality requirements for discharge into Kingfisher Creek, improving the water quality for community residents and businesses.

“The waste water treatment plant was built in the late 80s with a life expectancy of 30 years of service,” City Manager Dave Slezickey told the Times & Free Press before the meeting. “In recent years, we have replaced major components as the structure of the plant was still good.”

Commissioners voted last October to approve the rehabilitation plan based on an engineering report that described it as a more feasible and less expensive option than new plant construction.

“Cowan Engineering conducted a study to determine if rehabilitation was feasible and if so, the cost difference between new construction and renovation,” Slezickey said. “The study concluded that renovation was possible, and significantly less expensive than new construction, for the same quality result.”

Construction of upgrades and improvements to the wastewater system are expected to extend the life of the facility by more than 30 years.

The project will be financed by a loan through the Oklahoma Clean Water State Revolving Fund.

The 20-year loan carries an actual interest rate of 1.39 percent, plus another half percent paid to the clean water revolving fund.

Joe Freeman, chief of the OWRB’s Financial Assistance Division, calculated that the city will save an estimated $679,000 over the life of the 20-year loan compared to traditional financing.

The loan will be secured with a lien on the revenues of the Authority’s electric, water, and sewer systems along with a mortgage on these systems.

Construction work is estimated to begin in October and is projected to take a full year for completion.

City Manager Dave Slezickey said in Wednesday’s meeting that besides the obvious benefit of extending the life of the city’s wastewater treatment plant and improving its operations, the project also will infuse additional cash into the economy during the construction process.

The CWSRF program is administered by the Oklahoma Water Resources Board with partial funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The CWSRF program has provided approximately $1.7 billion in water quality loans to provide communities the resources necessary to maintain and improve the infrastructure that protects our valuable water resources statewide.

Since 1983, the Oklahoma Water Resources Board has approved over $4.4 billion in loans and grants for water and wastewater infrastructure improvements throughout Oklahoma.

“We are grateful to State Senator Darcy Jech and State Representative Mike Sanders, for their support of our financial assistance programs,” said Julie Cunningham, Executive Director of the OWRB.