FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The city’s waste water treatment plant received major repairs on Nov. 12 that involved routing waste water through the old sewage plant.

“We had some problems that required extensive repairs,” said Dan McCrory, city superintendent of the water and sewer department, at the Nov. 26 City Council meeting. He said the total cost for the repairs was $26,619 and included the labor and assistance of several city departments

“It just shows when there is a problem here, people jump in and solve it,” he said.

He said that because the city performed the repairs itself, it eliminated the need for a contract with James Bros. Excavating Inc. that was awarded a contract to clean sand buildup in the aeration tank. He said that the tank had not been cleaned since it was constructed in the mid-1990s. McCrory told the council his staff had seen a “violent mix” of water bubbling in the tank, indicating the main aerator had problems, which they first attributed to the build up of sand in the tank, that gets into the system through storm-water runoff in the sewers.

But when they drained the tank, they saw that a number of diffusers, which enable air to dissolve in the water had broken. They did those repairs themselves, as well as some other modifications to the tank itself.

He said that the air needs to dissolve property in the tank to sustain the bacteria in the tank that contributes to the waste water treatment process.

“I won’t know until we calculate the data,” he said, referring to whether there was any impact on the local environment or water quality that would require further notification to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

“Of course we did notify them, and they knew we were doing the repairs.”

He said a report is filed at the end of the month with ADEM regarding water quality issues of the facility. The waste water is discharged through an outfall pipe that empties approximately 3,000 feet off the shore in Mobile Bay, he said.

“We had to have the whole equipment modified,” said Council Chairman Bob Gentle.

McCrory met with the entire City Council and Mayor Tim Kant prior to the regular meeting that night as the first of a series of meetings initiated by recommendations in a report last month regarding ways to improve the structure and functioning of city government.

“The purpose (of the meetings) is to get the City Council more involved in the city utilities, other than just getting a printout saying this is what happened,” Gentle said. “It was a good meeting.”

He said the second of those meetings will be with the electric department at 4 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 10, in the conference room at City Hall.