Starting next year, a new company will operate and maintain Vancouver’s two wastewater treatment plants and industrial food-waste pretreatment lagoon under a 10-year contract the City Council approved Monday.
The contract with Colorado-based engineering consulting firm CH2M (Operations Management International Inc.) will save the city about $1.6 million per year. The total operation and maintenance costs for the wastewater plants are projected to be $8.1 million next year, compared with $9.7 million in 2014. The first several years’ savings will pay for two proposed capital improvement projects at the treatment facilities, according to city documents.
Veolia Water has operated the city’s Marine Park and Westside water reclamation facilities since 1978, on a contract last renewed in 2011.
In 2013, the city council decided that an open competition for wastewater treatment would ensure the city was getting the best-quality services at the most competitive price, and after nearly two years, the city’s proposal evaluation committee recommended hiring CH2M.
