Union Bridge News Briefs

(4/1) Plans to Broadcast Council Meetings Moves Forward

The long-discussed plan to begin taping and broadcasting of the Town Council Meetings took a big step forward at the March 11th Mayor and Town Council Public Workshop when the Council approved working with the Carroll Media Center to install video recording equipment in the Council Meeting room.

The Carroll Media Center, a Carroll County public, education, and government media organization, operates a public access television production facility and among its many responsibilities is to assist local communities, like Union Bridge, to set up the infrastructure to capture Town Meetings.

According to Bob Blubaugh of the Carroll Media Center, its IT support staff will visit the Town offices and establish exactly what is currently in place to support video recording and, once done, will install all necessary remaining equipment. Blubaugh said that initial efforts will be placed on recording video of the Meetings and then taking it to the Center and placed both on-line and retransmitted over its public access channel.

"The goal, however, will be to transmit the Meetings in real time to the community," said Blubaugh, "but that will depend upon the installation of a dedicated line from the Center to the Union Bridge Town Hall, and, as that will require state money, it may take a while."

"But hopefully, within three to four months, residents will be able to begin to watch recordings on the Meetings within a day of the actual Meeting."

Plans For New Waste Water Treatment Facility Begin To Take Shape

Several key cogs in the wheel necessary for the construction of the Town’s new waste water treatment plant were put on the table for the Council’s consideration at their March workshop.

First up was the recommendation to purchase the remaining 6.1 acres of the 12-acre lot opposite the Town office, east of the current wastewater treatment facility, and north of the UB Solar farm. The Town currently has threeyears left on its option to purchase the 6.1 acres for $27,000. The Town completed the purchase the first half last year.

If approved, the Council was told that the full 12 acres would give the Town more flexibility in the setting of the new facility.

The second cog involved the design recommendations for the new facility to replace the current 60 year old facility, which the state has mandated be replaced.

Commissioner Bret Grossnickle recommended that the Town move forward with a design utilizing an oxidation ditch, a modified activated sludge biological treatment process that utilizes long solids retention times to remove biodegradable organics.

Unlike the classic sequencing batch reactor (SBR) system, which is a fill-and-draw activated sludge system for wastewater treatment where wastewater is added to a single "batch" reactor, treated to remove undesirable components, and then discharged, an oxidation ditch is oval shaped like a racetrack, it’s easy to maintain and operate and also requires less energy for operation, but requires a large area for construction, which is where purchasing the full 12 acres comes in. "An oxidation ditch system will cost about $1 to 1.5 million more to build, but we’ll more then make that back by reducing operating costs over its lifetime."

"The disadvantages of an SBR system is that it requires a higher level of sophistication of controls and higher levels of annual maintenance. We could possibly run an oxidation ditch system without on-site staff, but if we went with a SBR system, we would have to hire staff to run the facility," Grossnickle said.

The current price tag of the new facility is estimated to be $13.8 million. "Once we get the State Department of the Environment’s ok and all the Federal permits lined up, we can start applying for grants," said Grossnickle. "Without grants, there is no way we can afford to do this," he said. Mayor Perry Jones seconded that opinion, "we can’t ask the residents to pay for it, if we did, we would be run out of Town."