Jackson residents to vote on wastewater treatment plant improvements

JACKSON, Mo. (KBSI) – On August 2, voters in Jackson will be asked to vote on a $10.1 million bond issue project that will pay for repairs and upgrades to aging equipment at the wastewater treatment plant.

More than $6 million of that money will be spent on the oxidation ditches and the sludge processing at the very end of the process. 

Public Works Director Kent Peetz said the new equipment will serve a dual purpose. 

“The equipment that we’re replacing the old equipment with will be much more efficient and will add more capacity to the wastewater treatment process,” he said.

Peetz said changes in everyday life and an increase in population have had a domino effect on wastewater treatment. 

“Thirty years ago when this was designed, there were five-gallon flush toilets. Now you have a 1.7-gallon flush toilet,” he said. “So people use less water now than they used to, but there are more people, so there is more waste to treat.” 

Peetz said the wastewater treatment plant is a necessary cog in the machine that keeps society going. 

“You cannot have the numbers of people we have living in society close to each other without wastewater treatment,” he said.

Peetz said that with the role this wastewater treatment plant plays in the community, repairing and upgrading the 30-plus year-old equipment will relieve some of the stress put on the plant. 

“We recycle over a million gallons a day here at this plant and return over a million gallons of water, fishable, swimmable water, to the creek every day,” he said. “And if you saw what comes in at the beginning of this process, there’s a lot of work to be done there.”