On Friday morning, state and local officials came together to cut the ribbon on a new expansion of the wastewater treatment facility just to the south of Kent Smith Memorial Park.

Bill Coutts, chairman of the board of trustees for the Mountain Green Sewer Improvement District, told the Standard-Examiner the reasons for the expansion were two-fold.

“Larry Nance, the previous chairman of the trustees, had a vision that we needed to get ahead of the future growth by increasing our plant capacity,” he said. “Then in January of 2021, the Department of Water Quality told us that we had to reduce our phosphorous levels going into the Weber River — and the (new) plant does that — and they gave us until January 2026 to make sure we were in compliance with those phosphorous levels.”

He said that the facility is nearly ready to bring the full gauntlet of its $30 million expansion online.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

“We just started putting sewer water through the plant for the first time this week,” he said. “We anticipate by the end of November the plant will be pretty much online.”

Coutts said the facility is currently able to serve 1,800 equivalent residential units, or ERUs. Once the new wastewater capacity is fully activated, the treatment plant will be able to serve 4,615 ERUs.

He said very little remains to be finished on the expansion at this point.

“It was a two-year project,” he said. “We are just at the very end of that. We’ve gone a little bit over that, time-wise, but I would say maybe 3% of the work is left to do and it’s all noncritical work. It’s all punch-list items that need to be repaired and maybe some landscaping activities.”

Ahead of Friday’s ribbon cutting was a short ceremony featuring statements from local and state officials.

Among those speaking was Rep. Tiara Auxier (R-District 4), who said that the treatment plant expansion is a great example of what collaboration can do.

“This project represents the best of what can happen and we can achieve when local, state and community members all come together with vision and determination,” she said. “I probably don’t have to tell you that it’s the result of years of thoughtful planning, coordination, careful investment and hard work.”

Also speaking Friday was Glenn Perry, CEO of the project’s primary contractor, COP Construction.

“I’m super proud of being able to build a project of this magnitude and have everybody go home the way they came to work,” he said. “That’s a huge priority for us at COP and I’m proud to say we did that on this project. I want to thank Mountain Green and everyone. This is kind of a generational project for the area and we should all be proud of it.”

Coutts also noted that the new wastewater plant expansion is set up to add additional capacity in the future.

“We can double our capacity,” he said. “It’s planned to go from 4,615 ERUs to 9,230. That expansion we’re looking to do in the next five years depending on how fast the developments continue to occur here in the Mountain Green District.”

He said thanks to efforts to acquire outside funding such as American Rescue Plan Act funds, there was another element to celebrate with the expansion.

“I think it’s worth noting that we’ve been able to do all of this without raising the sewer rates for more than four years,” he said.

Coutts said the Mountain Green community has much to be proud of with this expansion.

“My thanks and congratulations go to all of the folks involved,” he said. “And most importantly, congratulations to the community for a new on-budget, on-schedule, cleaner operating wastewater treatment plant.”