Decorah City Council approves low bid on Wastewater Treatment Plant project

The Decorah City Council has approved a bid of $89,593 to install a new 300 kilowatt emergency generator at the city's wastewater treatment plant.

The current generator is 31 years old, with parts either no longer being manufactured or, if they are available, come from salvage yards.

In addition to the new generator, the project will connect a control system to the generator that can call WWTP staff when there are problems at the plant--avoiding a situation in which sewage could back up in the community within a couple of hours.

The original estimate for the construction cost was $200,000, but an oversupply of generators on the market brought the bids in for less than half that estimate.