Work underway on Lincoln sewer system; State Revolving Fund loans approved for project

Lincoln’s aging sewer system is getting a much-needed upgrade with the help of two loans for the State Revolving Fund approved last month.

Governor Steve Bullock officially announced the approval of $538,900 in loans in an Aug. 26 press release.

The Lincoln Sewer District received one 30-year SRF loan for $430,000 with a 2.5 percent interest rate, a second $108,900 SRF loan that may be forgiven if the district meets certain conditions and a $125,000 Renewable Resource Grant from DNRC for the project.

According to the press release, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality will oversee the projects implementation, while DNRC administers the loan.

The loans will finally allow the Sewer District to replace and modernize the key components of the system, including the pumps at the two lift stations that carry the community’s gray water to the sewer lagoons south of town. The pumps date to 1986, when the system was first installed, and have been a source of concern for several years.

Lincoln Sewer District President Lyndon Conroy said the loans actually closed July 31, which allowed work to get underway last month.

Lincoln Sewer District Manager Roger Brandenberger said Copper Creek Construction of Great Falls began work on the system Aug. 12.

“It’s going really well,” he said. “The electrical work is about 75 percent done. We’re just waiting for some pumps to get them installed.”

He said they’ve also gotten the wet wells cleaned and resealed.

Once the new pumps arrive, the work will shift to about 3 a.m. so they can take the pumps out of service when the flow is at a minimum, Brandenberger said. He said ratepayers shouldn’t notice any problems with their service while the work proceeds.

A failure at the Central Avenue pump station in 2014 affected several district rate payers on the west side of town, and later that year a lightning strike at the main Blackfoot River pump station damaged a computer system and one of the two aging pumps at the station.

Were the system to fail, waste water would back up into the lines and into individual septic systems and residences and, as Conroy noted in 2017, would probably have an impact on the Blackfoot River itself.

As part of an effort to deal with a potential major failure, the district bought a pump and hardware a few years ago for use as a bypass and a backup to keep the system running. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t have been a permanent solution.

In 2016, the district proposed replacing all piping, valves, pumps rails lifts and controls in the wet wells and installing new redundant submersible pumps at both pump stations, with new controls and generators. At that time, the district had paid off an SRF loan that funded a lagoon expansion and had lowered user rates dramatically, but the need to sustain the system forced them to raise rates five percent.

They had hoped to finance the work and limit the impact on rate-payers by using a combination of grants through the Treasure State Endowment Program and smaller SRF loans. However, ahead of the 2017 legislative session, the district found out their grant application ranked 43 out of 46.

Without other options, the district moved ahead with seeking SRF loans to fund the full amount of the project.

“We had to find a way to upgrade the system,” Conroy told the BVD, “Being 30 years old, we couldn’t replace the pumps. They don’t make them anymore, so we had to find a way to do that upgrade.

Conroy said they had hoped to maintain the smaller, incremental increase to keep users from feeling the pinch, but in applying for the SRF loans, the District trustees found they had to raise rates by more than $5 in July to improve the district’s debt-to-income ratio to qualify for the loans.

“Our rates were too low compared to other communities around the state. We still pay less than the vast majority, even with our rate increase to $37,” Conroy said. “It’s not something we wanted to do, but we were forced to do that.”

According to the press release, work on the project is slated to be completed in December, but Brandenberger said they have a 45-day timeline, so they expect to have it done well before then.

“Communities that invest in modern infrastructure, including drinking water and wastewater treatment systems, benefit now and for generations to come,” Bullock said in the press release. “These projects not only create good-paying jobs for Montana workers, they better prepare our communities for new growth and development enhance the health and well-being of our citizens, and protect our soil, groundwater and surface water.”

“We’re hoping that by redoing the system it will be good to go for another 30 years. We don’t intend to increase the rates if we don’t have to,” Conroy said. “We’re hoping this work gets done and we don’t have to worry about our systems for a long time.”