West Point Sewer Plant to Be Replaced by Residential Units

Fayette County Commissioners awarded a bid to replace the West Point Sewer Plant at a meeting last Thursday, March 11.

Fayette County built the West Point Sewer Plant in the early 2000s after state regulators discovered several homes in West Point that were dumping raw sewage onto the ground. As an unincorporated community, West Point has never had municipal services like water and sewer.

Fees that the County charges to the residents on the system have not kept up with the rising costs of maintaining the system.

“The infrastructure that’s there has reached the end of its life,” said County Inspector Clint Sternadel, who oversees the West Point Sewer System. “The maintenance and replacement costs have been pretty drastic.”

The County received a grant to pay for upgrading the system. Befco Engineering drew up the plans, which call for the sewer plant to be replaced with on-site aerobic septic systems at each residence. The County received four bids for the work. The low bid of $295,800 was from Jahnz Site Services of Round Top. Commissioners voted unanimously to award the bid to Jahnz. Pct. 3 Commissioner Harvey Berckenhoff questioned the large difference between the lowest bid from Jahnz and the highest bid, which came from Lee County Irrigation for $793,700. Sternadel said the difference could be due to the kind of equipment each company has available to use and whether they would have to subcontract any of the work.

“As long as you’re satisfied that the job will be done right, then I’m good with it,” Berckenhoff said.

“We’ve done numerous projects with Jahnz from water to wastewater projects, and they have always successfully completed them,” said Joseph Willrich of Befco Engineering. “We have a lot of confidence in their ability to get this work done. They’ve done a lot of onsite septic work here in Fayette County. We feel like they are qualified for this work.”

Commissioners voted unanimously to award the bid to Jahnz Site Services.