build a new plant."

Walter Beasley, general manager of the Ohio County Water District, said the plant’s treatment technology includes ultra membrane filtration, in which the water is pressured through membranes to produce high-quality water.

“A lot of places are going to these because it does such a good job,” said Beasley. “It filters out particles smaller than the eye can see, even viruses.

That’s a big benefit. We’ll have some of the best water quality in Kentucky.”

Consulting engineer Dan Shoemaker of Tetra Tech added that the new plant also includes granular activated carbon contactors—a process that is fairly new for Kentucky plants. This process prevents the creation of undesirable byproducts that result when dissolved contaminants react with disinfectants.

Ohio County has embarked on a project to build its own state-of-the-art water treatment plant that, when complete, will produce some of the finest drinking water in Kentucky.

That’s par for the course for this western Kentucky county that has been chosen as one of America’s 100 Best Communities for Young People by America’s Promise Alliance ( www.americaspromise.org) and is the birthplace of Bill Monroe, who is considered to be the father of Bluegrass music.

Project planners estimated that the new plant would come in at close to $15 million. When it was put out for bids in August 2008, the bids came in over budget and pushed the project cost up to $20 million—an excessive amount for the county during troubled economic times. As a result, they conducted a post-bid value engineering process led by J.R. Wauford Consulting Engineers. Tetra Tech subsequently redesigned the plant, incorporating some of the value engineering findings but retaining the membrane filtration and granular activated carbon treatment processes.

The new water treatment plant will have the capacity of producing 4 million gallons per day (MGD), double that of their current facility, and will replace an existing 2 MGD plant. It will also eliminate the need for treated water currently supplied by a local poultry processing facility when the contract expires next year.

“If it had come back in at a higher cost, we would have gone back to conventional treatment,” said Beasley. “However, after the re-bid in May 2009, the bids came in more favorable reducing the project cost to $14 million. That allowed us to stay with the membrane and carbon treatment.”

Project consultant Sheryl Chino of the Green River Area Development District explains how the county arrived at the decision to build its own plant.

“In 1996, Perdue Farms built a plant in Ohio County. It included a water plant as well as a manufacturing plant. They made a deal that Perdue would furnish 1 million gallons per day of water to Ohio County free of charge until 2009,” said Chino. “Our needs at that point exceeded what our 2-MGD plant could produce. So when the contract was close to running out, we realized we would have to

The plant is expected to be completed by spring 2011. Perdue has agreed to supply the water at a reasonable cost until the plant comes online.

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