Though the city tabled the motion, the Holts Summit Board of Aldermen discussed the future of the city's sewage treatment facility.
Over three scheduled public hearings throughout the meeting lead by Chad Sayre, a representative from the city's contracted engineering firm Allstate Consultants, aldermen heard about their various alternatives and solutions for replacing their wastewater treatment plant to meet Environmental Protection Agency standards, the environmental impact the project would have and the affect it would have on ratepayers.
Sayre said the city had two viable options: build a new wastewater facility through a voter-approved $7 million bond issue, or enter into a sustainable long-term contract with Jefferson City for the treatment of the city's wastewater.
Holts Summit's current all-metal wastewater treatment plant, which Sayre said was about 20 years old when the city purchased it that many years ago, has "aged and outlived its useful life."
Sayre said that building a new facility would have minor short-term environmental impact such as dirt and invasive construction and would potentially have "minor" impact on a small portion of floodplain, but either option would have significant environmental improvement to the current streams and tributaries used to dump effluence - treated water output from the plant.