NEWMAN – City officials have gotten the green light to move forward with construction of additional storage at the Newman wastewater treatment plant, needed to provide capacity which will allow the facility to weather heavy storms without treated water overflowing.

Getting to this point has proven no small challenge, however.

Local leaders said they believed they had the blessing of Regional Water Quality Control Board staff members two years ago to proceed with construction of additional storage – only to learn when trying to nail down financing for the project that the state agency had not signed off on the project.

“We had an oral commitment from the board, and we went out and engineered the project,” said City Manager Michael Holland. “We wanted to have it built last year.”

That didn’t happen.

Instead, the state agency indicated in an August letter that it would be the end of the year before it would determine if Newman’s application was complete, Holland said.

City officials decided to press for an answer and enlisted the support of Assembly member Cathleen Galgiani, who met recently with the director of the agency, Holland, Garza and council member Ed Katen.

“We are looking for answers,” Holland said prior to the meeting. “We want them to let us know if this was a project they want us to move forward on. If they don’t want us to complete it, we need to move on. We just want them to tell us.”

In the meeting, he later told Mattos Newspapers, city staff and its consultants explained the importance of the project, and were told that the project would be authorized so the city could obtain its funding and proceed.

“We just presented our case,” he stated.

The city has since received a letter confirming that authorization.

The project will provide safeguards against the overflow of treated wastewater during heavy storm events.

“When it rained for a month in March 2006 we were very close, but we did not have a breach. We were filled to the top,” Holland said. “The last thing we want to do is have a breach and have the water leave the premises. The state would not look kindly on that water making its way to the river, even though it is treated water.”

The city will not be able to break ground on the project until next summer.

“That was big for us,” Holland said of the pending authorization. “Now we have the next nine months to get our financing in order. Without the state giving us that approval, we couldn’t find financing.”

City officials fear that the delays could end up proving costly due to increases in fuel costs over the past year.

“It is basically a fuel-driven project,” Holland said.

The project is expected to cost $3.5 million to $4 million, substantially more than staff members believe the work would have cost a year ago.

Some of those costs could be defrayed, however, as the city is exploring options for a federal grant to help with the work.