CAPE MAY — The city is waiting for one final permit to move forward with replacement of its agin desalination plant.
Consulting and Municipal Engineers Associates (CME) presented a project update on the project to City Council on Dec. 2.
CME managing partner David Samuel said officials have secured all of the necessary approvals except for a land use permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). He expects that in the first or second week of January.
The next step will be finalizing designs and soliciting bids.
Once that is complete, the project will be completed in phases as funding becomes available, Samuel said.
The first phase will be constructing the building and removing iron
“The breakdown of phases is because of the funding we’re awaiting from the Army Corps of Engineers,” Samuel said. “It isn’t going to be available until [2027].”
He said City Administrator Paul Dietrich recommended moving forward with the project so that when the funds are secured, the reverse osmosis units could be installed in the completed building.
The third phase will involved installation of solar arrays and some electrical site improvements, while the final phase will be site restoration.
CME project manager Mike Dubeck said the design specs are at 70 percent. The process included going through regulatory agencies, including the DEP, Soil Conservation District and the state Bureau of Water System Engineering.
“They primarily review the processes and the treatment equipment that’s proposed here,” Dubeck said.
He added that the DEP’s historic preservation panel has signed off on the project.
“They had us do two cultural resources investigations on the site, [including] a physical review of the site at the surface, and background research on the history of the facility,” Dubeck said.
He added that the second requirement was to physically excavate holes down to the native Earth below the area where the new treatment building is located.
“They wanted to make sure there’s no artifacts or other historic objects, but nothing was found,” he said.
The desalination facility has two primary water supplies: the Atlantic City Sands wells, which comprise three wells in that aquifer. Dubeck said these wells require desalination.
“The other one is the one well in the Cohansey Aquifer, which has avoided saltwater contamination but does have iron,” Dubeck said. “The initial phase would be to address the Cohansey well.”
The existing treatment building will be maintained, and Dubeck said new buildings will be added and parking space maximized.
“The only thing that won’t be constructed in the initial phase is the RO cleaning equipment, which had to be pushed off into the second phase,” Samuel said. “You’ll want to make sure this building is flexible enough to be able to expand in the future.”
Dubeck said the proposed building will include a port in place with a brick façade extending up to about 4 feet above grade, which provides flood resiliency. Samuel said parts of the design may be tweaked.
“The elevation is currently 2 feet above the 500-year flood elevation, and with that additional concrete around the bottom 4 feet, flood barriers can be installed to get it up to 6 feet or above,” Dubeck said.
Mayor Zack Mullock asked how much higher the design is than the current building. Dubeck said it was 3 feet higher.
Councilwoman Lorraine Baldwin asked if there would be a sunken part of the building, as in the current one. Samuel said some areas are basically concrete trenches that carry utilities, covered with either fiberglass grading or other grading.
“We’re still going to decide, during the final design of that aspect, whether we put in a drainage system there or whether we slightly recess that area to be able to collect any condensation and then carry it away,” Samuel said. “In this plant, we’re also going to have a dehumidifying system to rely on, so we don’t have to experience all of that water being accumulated.”
Samuel added that those details would be addressed in the final design.
Mullock said the phasing, matching the grant process, makes sense.
“I think it leaves us in a good position, [since] we’ve made upgrades to the existing plant to make sure that it’s functioning for the next few years,” he said.
By RACHEL SHUBIN/Special to the Star and Wave
