JEFFERSONVILLE — Jeffersonville officials closed a more than $700,000 deal Thursday, purchasing about 49 acres of land at the River Ridge Commerce Center for a new sewer treatment plant.
The commerce center is located of Ind. 62 on land that used to contain the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant. City officials are seeking to build a $15 million north sewer plant there, both as a means of sustaining future growth and relieving capacity on the downtown sewer plant. Under Thursday’s deal the city takes over possession and operation of an existing sewer plant, which currently serves the commerce center.
The purchase has been in the works for about a year.
Last March, Jeffersonville’s Board of Public Works and Safety approved a motion condemning the property for city use. That was met with a remonstrance lawsuit filed a few months later but negotiations between the city, the commerce center, the Army and Wastewater One — the company that operated the old sewer plant there — continued.
In January, the River Ridge Development Authority — the commerce center’s governing body — approved a plan allowing the city to acquire the land in three parcels. The first parcel, about 16.1 acres, would be deeded over to the city from River Ridge at the cost of $1. For now, the city will lease a second parcel — 24.4 acres — from River Ridge for $1 per year. And the final portion of the property, about 9.9 acres, is land still owned by the Army, which Jeffersonville will also acquire at cost.
Thomas noted that all parties consented to Thursday’s closing.
“Long term, you know that’s the area of the city that’s going to grow,” Thomas said.
Additionally, he said the new plant would be able to take about 35 percent of current dry weather flow from the downtown treatment plant.
“That just frees up that much more capacity in the collection system,” he said.
The collection system has been under the microscope in recent years as officials have been negotiating with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over violations of the U.S. Clean Water Act caused by combined sewer overflows.
Combined sewer overflows occur when heavy rainfall becomes too much for the combined sanitary and storm sewer system — mostly located downtown — to handle. The end result is untreated sewage being washed into local waterways, including the Ohio River.
Initially, the proposed north plant will be able to treat about 3 million gallons of sewer per day when it begins operating in 2012, Thomas said. However, it’ll be upgradable, eventually making it capable of handling twice that amount.
Thomas said some design work on the plant has already started. He estimated construction would start in 2011. Calls seeking comment from Mayor Tom Galligan and Sewer Board Attorney Scott Lewis were not returned by press time.
