Members of the Constantine Village Council, village staff, and representatives from Fleis & Vandenbrink and Grand River Construction, take a look at the operation of the tanks at the newly-refreshed Constantine Wastewater Treatment Plant during a tour on Thursday, Aug. 21. The plant, which repurposes much of the existing plant facilities while including a new headworks building, is expected to go online in the next couple of weeks.
By Robert Tomlinson
News Director
CONSTANTINE — Constantine Village Council members Thursday got their first look at a newly-renovated wastewater treatment plant prior to its launch in the next couple of weeks.
The $20 million facility, which took a couple of years to complete, is expected to be put online within the next two weeks to handle wastewater in the village. Once online, the village will cease sending its wastewater via a much-maligned force main to the Three Rivers wastewater treatment plant, and said force main will be shut down as soon as the plant goes online.
“Very excited about having the tour and seeing what’s been done. It’s been a long time coming, but it’s great, and this will be a big help for the village,” Village Council President Gary Mathers said.
Nearly all councilmembers, as well as Village Manager Mark Honeysett, attended the tour of the plant, which was led by representatives from engineering firm Fleis & Vandenbrink and construction company Grand River Construction, both of which handled the project.
The facility is on the same site as a wastewater treatment plant on West Water Street near the banks of the St. Joseph River that operated previously in the village, up until it was shut down after 1998 to start sending wastewater to Three Rivers. In fact, much of the project involved repurposing all of the treatment tanks and nearly all of the existing buildings, while also constructing a new headworks building.
That repurposing, Fleis & Vandenbrink representatives say, saved the village about $5-10 million.
“Especially when you have a facility like this in close proximity to the river, there’s high groundwater, so you can’t go digging big holes in the ground because then you have to figure out what to do with the water when you get down there,” Project Manager Joe Benjamin of Fleis & Vandenbrink said. “So, as much of the existing infrastructure you can reuse as possible saves you a lot of cost.”
It is also a project that has been years in the making, with initial talks as early as 2014, plans first drafted in 2019 and permit applications initially submitted in early 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic. It took until the last quarter of 2023 before the go-ahead was given to start construction. Through it all, Benjamin said, the council have been good partners with Fleis & Vandenbrink in the process.
“We’ve worked with them for decades now discussing this project, lining up funding for the project, planning for the project, designing the project and then building the project,” Benjamin said. “Obviously, they’re involved from the administrative side in approving the financing and funding for the project, and it’s rewarding for them to come and see how it all shook out.”
Councilmembers first visited the location of the underground pumps that bring in the wastewater from the village before moving into the new headworks building. They also visited the control rooms of the headworks and the operational offices of the plant, the latter of which had to be worked on extensively inside to get back into working shape.
Following the tour, Honeysett called the plant and its operation “remarkable.”
“Compared to what we have, there is no comparison. It’s a remarkable job, a remarkable plant,” Honeysett said. “It’s beyond my expectations, frankly.”
After going through all the stages of the treatment process, which include pumping, screening, grit removal, biological treatment, clarification, and UV disinfecting, the effluent from the plant will be discharged into the St. Joseph River. Benjamin said the plant will follow all of the guidelines laid out in their discharge permit from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, and claims it will be “a clean product” going into the river.
“Essentially, what we’re removing is the organics and nutrients coming in from the village, and then disinfecting it and then having a clean product going out into the river,” Benjamin said. “It’ll be cleaner than the receiving river.”
During the visit, the plant was running tests to make sure it would be operational upon launch. Both Honeysett and Benjamin said there are still some tests to do to make sure the effluent is within the “acceptable range,” according to Honeysett, and once that occurs, the plant will go online. Benjamin said residents shouldn’t be able to notice a change in their wastewater systems once the new plant goes online.
“They can continue to flush their toilets and wash their sinks. Ideally, they won’t see any change, because all the stuff is happening here,” Benjamin said.
Honeysett acknowledged there has been some unhappiness from residents in terms of the price tag and rising sewer costs associated with the construction project, and that “I wish I could do something about that,” in the long-run he said the new wastewater treatment plant will be a positive for the village.
“We’ll have our own working treatment plant that is definitely state of the art, and it’ll be a little easier for the customers,” Honeysett said. “I think it’s very important, it gives us a chance to attract more industry, to attract more residents and so forth, so I think it’s critical.
“In the long run, people in Constantine will be happy, the industry in Constantine will be happy. I think this is a really momentous occasion.”
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@wilcoxnewspapers.com.
