State grants Williams $17 million sewer loan

The new wastewater treatment facility in Williams got the green light Tuesday when the California Water Resources Control Board approved a $17 million, no-interest loan.

All five members of the City Council, the city administrator, financial consultant and plant engineer attended the Sacramento meeting, where things went better than expected.

"We got $17 million for 30 years at no interest," City Administrator Chuck Bergson said immediately after the decision. "We were expecting 1 percent, but got no percent."

The project, construction for which was originally scheduled to begin in September, was derailed by the state as "controversial and non-routine" after the Colusa County grand jury investigation uncovered negligent financial management by the city.

Bergson said the state board recognized Tuesday how much the city has worked the past few months to strengthen internal controls and address any lingering concerns.

"They know that Williams is going to grow and how much we need to get this project completed," he said.

Mayor Pat Ash said Tuesday that the state's decision came as a huge relief for the City Council, which has worked for years to meet the stringent state and federal clean water guidelines.

"Like I told the (state) directors, I feel that we finally made it to Oz," Ash said.

Bergson said Syblon Reid, the Folsom construction company awarded the contract in July, is holding to its original $12 million bid and the project should be under way by January.

The new state-of-the art wastewater treatment plant will be similar to the plant completed by Colusa for $16 million in October 2008.

Williams' plant will be the second in the area to use the new ultra violet light disinfecting technology, a process that removes bacteria from the wastewater without the use of chemical disinfectants.

The wastewater treatment plant in Willows, completed in 2006 for $10 million, uses a chlorine disinfecting system.

Once completed, the Williams plant will discharge the nearly pure treated water into Salt Creek, where it will make its way to Freshwater Creek and the Colusa Basin Drain, then used for agriculture purposes, according to the plant's designer.

The plant improvements in Williams will include an upgrade of the existing pump station, construction of a headworks, construction of a secondary treatment system, including a new aeration basin, a secondary clarifyer, new tertiary filtration facilities, an equalization basin, two pump stations, structures for housing motor control equipment and a new office building.

The project will take about 18 months to complete, city officials said.

Contact Susan Meeker at 458-2121 or smeeker@tcnpress.com.