AVILLA â The town of Avillaâs wastewater treatment plant needs an upgrade. A consultantâs report set the estimated price tag at $2.3 million.
For that kind of money, the Avilla Town Council said Wednesday it wanted to hear from the author of the report, which could happen as soon as the councilâs next meeting set for May 19.
According to Utilities Superintendent Brian Carroll, the sewage plant went online in February 2002.
âIt hasnât been touched in 20 years,â Carroll told the council.
Several upgrades need to be made to keep the town in compliance with discharge requirements set by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Among the issues is the amount of phosphorous being removed.
The hazard pay was tied to the coronavirus pandemic.
âCOVID is a big deal for us,â Town Marshal Glen Wills, who made the pitch for the bonus, said. âOur officers are at a lot of risk.â
Wills also asked for an extension of the COVID policy which allowed supervisors to send employees home with COVID if they believed themselves to have been exposed to the virus.
Wills gave the example of one of his employees who thought he had been exposed to the virus. The employee called Wills and asked what they should do. If the employee had come to work and later discovered he was positive for the virus, the entire police department building would have required an expensive deep cleaning, Wills told the council.