By BILL MARDIS, Editor Emeritus
Somerset — Design is about 50 percent complete on a $25 million upgrading of Somerset’s water treatment plant that will have a membrane filtration system and increase capacity from 10 million to 16 million gallons a day.
Somerset city engineer Alex Godsey, speaking Thursday to the Somerset Kiwanis Club, said a contract for what is essentially a new water plant at the same Waitsboro site probably will be let by the end of the year. He said water use is nearing capacity of the existing treatment plant.
Membrane filtration is the latest technology, and Somerset’s new plant would be one of three of this type in Kentucky. In membrane filtration, water is passed through a semi-permeable membrane that acts as a barrier to particles which are larger than the pores. The result is a cleaned and filtered fluid on one side of the membrane, with contaminated particles on the other side.
Godsey also noted that construction has been under way about six months on a new wastewater treatment plant off Ky. 914 at the Pitman Creek site. It will take another year to complete the facility, he indicated.
Another city project is to clear debris from a sinkhole that accepts surface water in the Richard’s Court-Grande Avenue areas of Somerset, sites of recent flooding. Simply, the intent is to keep the sinkhole from clogging, the engineer indicated.
A recent heavy rain showed the plan is working and the sinkhole “ ... is taking water a lot better than before,” Godsey said.
