WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. − West Lafayette's Wastewater Treatment department is preparing for the future that SkyWater Technology has for the city after its announcement last month.
In July, SkyWater Technology announced its plans to open a $1.8 billion state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing facility in Discovery Park District at Purdue University. With this comes 750 jobs on top of constant other expansions happening in Discovery Park and around West Lafayette.
As such, the city's wastewater utilities needs to be prepared.
"Once they break ground (on the new facility), we've got three years," David Henderson Wastewater Utility director, told the Journal & Courier, "and then they're discharging 2 million gallons (of wastewater) a day to us. I have the capacity at the plant to handle that right now, but I don't want to just take that and not plan for what else may come out there."
According to Henderson, the wastewater facility sees around 8 million gallons per day. The additional 2 million is something the facility can currently handle, but preparing for any further expansion in the future is something that needs preparing for.
On Tuesday, the board approved an agreement for professional engineering services between the City of West Lafayette and Greely and Hansen LLC for the planning and conceptual design of a "regional lift station" and "force main" that will be in or near Discovery Park. The planning of these designs will include the wastewater needs for the SkyWater development.
"So we have to make sure that we have not only capacity for what's announced today but what's next as we look to the future," Henderson said. "So looking at expanding the plant so that we can stay ahead of the game."
Further support for incoming expansions to the city and, in turn, its wastewater utilities, comes in the form of an approved agreement with Wastewater Solutions, Inc. (WSI).
"The City of West Lafayette’s WRRF (West Lafayette Water Resource Recovery Facility) will undergo a significant upgrade to accept and treat the pretreated wastewater from the new Skywater computer chip manufacturing facility," the letter agreement document says. "This will be the first significant industrial discharger into the City’s municipal wastewater treatment plant."
According to the document, WSI will "provide input in discussions regarding process upgrades, new component design, equipment, operational and maintenance considerations," as well as on-call support throughout the design process.
The agreement between WSI and West Lafayette will not exceed $119,600 and the estimated timeline of the agreement is four to four-and-a-half years, according to the letter.
Cumberland Avenue from east of Yeager Road will be closed for a yet-to-be-determind block of four hours on Wednesday. This closure is on behalf of Duke Energy and is to allow the installation of fiber optic cables across the avenue.
Chris Gmyrek, city engineering technician, stated the specific four hour block that the area will be closed will be chosen based on the least amount of impact to traffic as possible.
Margaret Christopherson is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. Email her at mchristopherson@jconline.com and follow her on Twitter @MargaretJC2.