Cape May looks to federal dollars to build new desal plant - Press of Atlantic City

Cape May looks to federal dollars to build new desal plant

CAPE MAY — A new water treatment plant may provide millions of gallons of water a day to thirsty residents, visitors and Coast Guard recruits, if the city can find the money.

In an update to City Council on Tuesday, David Samuel, managing partner with the firm Consulting and Municipal Engineers, presented a hopeful assessment of the prospect of gaining millions of dollars’ worth of federal grants to fund a new desalination plant.

But it will take time.

“The reality is it’s a process to follow. So we’re in that process,” consultant Michael Zumpino said at the meeting.

Mayor Zack Mullock said last week it could be about two years before water starts flowing from a new plant. For more than a year, city officials have said the current plant does not have enough capacity to meet the area’s water needs under state guidelines and would need to be replaced or dramatically upgraded.

People are also reading…

“So where are we going to get the money, Mike?” Mullock asked Zumpino.

The city turned to the consultants to help guide it toward the eventual replacement of a water desalination plant and to help seek out enough grant money to make it feasible.

The current plant was state-of-the-art when it was completed more than two decades ago as an answer to saltwater intrusion into the municipal wells on which Cape May and the surrounding communities depend.

CAPE MAY – Cape May City Council authorized three resolutions on Tuesday, Jan. 19 to pay for…

The first trickle of money

One of New Jersey’s first beach resorts, the community has been drawing water from wells for generations, digging new ones as saltwater began to be drawn in from the old ones.

That strategy was not going to work forever, and in the 1990s, the city tried a radical new approach, constructing a plant that uses reverse osmosis to filter the salt from the water, allowing the city’s water utility to continue to draw from wells that would otherwise be too salty to drink.

At that time, the city looked to federal grants to help cover the cost of the water treatment plant. The city hopes federal grants will come through again.

The first trickles of that money already have started to flow, potentially priming the pump for millions more. A $30,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture helped fund an assessment of conditions at the plant, and Samuel told council members that $600,000 has been approved through congressionally directed spending, which will fund the next phase of engineering.

Cape May requested those funds last year, and while there are still details to be worked out, Samuel expects them to be in place by the end of the year.

According to Samuel’s presentation, that grant may draw more grants, in the range of $25 million to $32 million, enough to fund a significant portion of the construction of a new water plant. But to apply for those levels of funding, the city will need to complete more detailed plans for the plant.

He spoke enthusiastically about the meetings that have taken place so far with state and federal officials about the need for the project and about communications with Sens. Bob Menendez and Cory Booker, both D-N.J., and U.S. Rep Jeff Van Drew, R-2nd.

Detailed plans await the $600,000, but the preliminary proposal calls for the construction of a building with a more modern water treatment system, one Samuel said would operate more efficiently.

CAPE MAY – When the Cape May Water Department runs its desalination plant, it sounds to some…

The new plant would include offices for staff, he said, and upgraded safety measures. In the current plant, some of the electrical systems are built close to water systems that are now less than watertight. The city should not have staff members standing in water, or potentially being sprayed with water, while operating electrical systems, Samuel said.

“That is an absolute no-no,” he said.

A new system could supply more than 3 million gallons of treated water a day, a capacity that could be increased with plans for an additional system that could remove iron from the water, allowing the use of another well with a high iron content.

If the city can’t get enough money to do everything, the plans are set so that the work can be accomplished in phases, to limit how much the city will bond for at one time.

“You’ve asked us to make sure that it’s a modernized plant that will simplify the operations and will last as long as it possibly can, and that’s what we’re trying to achieve,” Samuel said.

Zumpino said the water capacity is needed not only for tourism and residents but also for the Coast Guard Training Center, the only site for basic training for the service in the country. Federal plans are to increase the capacity for the number of recruits at the center.

Zumpino said he has met with officials with the Coast Guard and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about the need for the project and potential funding. He said the consultants had a consistent message:

“This isn’t just a preferred option, a whim, something that we’d like to do,” he said. “This was critical to the continued sustainability of providing potable water to military and to communities for tourism and the quality of life.”

LOWER TOWNSHIP — A $12 million project to bring public water to 3,000 homes in the Town Bank…

Council member Shaine Meier spoke in favor of the water project but said he would want to make every effort to preserve the current building, or at least save the façade. The current water works are housed in a building on Canning House Lane that dates to the 1920s.

With the importance Cape May places on historic preservation, Meier said, the city should try to lead by example.

The water continues to flow in Cape May. City officials say while the plant is operating over capacity, the city’s water utility meets the need even on crowded summer weekends. The state Department of Environmental Protection mandates that communities be able to supply more than 100% of peak demand even if the most productive well goes down.

The city is in the midst of multiple large-scale projects, with work finishing up on a new fire headquarters on Franklin Street, next to another project underway to renovate the former Franklin Street School as a new Cape May branch of the county library, and plans in the works for a new police station as well.

Contact Bill Barlow:

609-272-7290

Twitter @jerseynews_bill