By Curt Peterson
The Windsor Central Unified Union School District (WCSU) board finance committee asked the building and grounds committee for their “go-ahead” Monday night, March 21, on a sewerage system upgrade at the Woodstock Middle/High School campus.
WCSU director of finance and operations Jim Fenn said a current bid for the project is $372,300, approximately $100,000 more than the FY2023 buildings and grounds committee budget contemplated based on a two-year old bid for the same specifications. Since the work would not be completed until late in the summer of 2023, the necessary budget adjustment can be made in the FY2024 budget — in other words, Fenn said, the increased expense doesn’t present a problem within the current budget.
Jim Haff, chair of the WCSU building and grounds committee, told the Mountain Times his group endorses the project strategy as Fenn described. It will now go to the full WCSU board for approval, possibly at its next meeting.
“There is one ‘lift station’ in front of the middle/high school building,” Fenn said, “that pumps/lifts sewerage from the tank to the pump station at Route 4.”
From that point the sewerage is carried by gravity to the Woodstock town sewerage system.
Although the current campus pumps have performed without issues, Fenn said they are so old that replacement parts are not generally available. “It is time to replace them before we need to jury-rig them,” Fenn said.
The replacement system design will accommodate sewerage from the proposed new middle/high school complex, Fenn added. “Once a new building has been constructed, the lift station behind the existing building will be decommissioned. A new lift station near the new building will be installed to pump sewerage to the Route 4 station.”
The pumps are necessary to raise the level of the sewerage 30-40 feet. Fenn said the same bidder provided both the original and current figures. The manufacturer of the equipment is Smith & Loveless, Inc. of Lenexa, Kentucky. Site work and installation will be done by Neil H. Daniels, Inc. of Springfield.
