The firm Civil & Environmental Consultants was approved by the Newcastle City Council to update the City’s Master Plan of Capital Improvement Projects. This will include city-wide water and sewer modeling, and is expected to give the City a map to the future.
Fresh water and wastewater projects are either ongoing or being planned throughout Newcastle, and the expense alone requires extensive planning by the City.
Discussion on these topics has been taking place at several City Council meetings in the past year. Many of these discussions have focused on the large geographic area in the city limits, and the lack of infrastructure, or the lack of good pressure because of older, smaller lines.
Council members have been replacing lines along State Highway 76 and have been making those lines bigger in the process as the Oklahoma Department of Transportation does a widening project in the area. The expenses on this project are to be repaid to the City by ODOT.
The City has also recently completed a bore under State Highway 37 which will service the Tri-City area of Newcastle. Businesses on the north of SH37 going to the east will benefit from this extension.
Among the most expensive of projects, construction of a new wastewater treatment facility is expected to cost upwards of $28-30 million. It is well underway with the City Council approving a Resolution at its January meeting approving the City to apply with the Oklahoma Water Resources Board for financial assistance for the new facility. This would be in the form of a lowinterest loan.
Other projects include the placement of an 18-inch line south of Fox Lane to the State Highway 9 water tower, and upgrading of lines along SH-9.
And, a booster station is going in at Western Avenue which will increase water pressure on Newcastle’s southeast side (see related story in this issue). The booster station will service a new housing development, the Selah Development, which is contracting with the City for water. Selah is also paying for the booster station.
The Water and Sewer Modeling project will include: mapping of all City-maintained water and sewer infrastructure; a one-foot topographic contour data, inflow and infiltration monitoring to determine the most impactful areas where stormwater is flowing into the sanitary sewer lines and ultimately being treated as wastewater, hydraulic modeling of the sanitary sewer and water distributing systems, and an analysis of the existing system and identification of future improvements of the water distribution and wastewater collection systems.
The goal of the project, according to City Engineer Kenny Sullivan, is to identify solutions to areas of infrastructure that are currently providing poor service, and/ or limiting the possibility of future development.
