COLRAIN — Three years after the closure of the Barnhardt Manufacturing Co. plant on Main Road and its wastewater treatment system, residents of Griswoldville’s Colrain Sewer District may finally see a solution to their wastewater woes.
Engineering firm Wright-Pierce presented a draft engineering report with potential solutions, which include the installation of a $3.55 million Bioclere wastewater treatment system on the Barnhardt site at 247 Main Road. If final engineering designs, permitting and financing are all secured according to schedule, construction could begin in 2028.
“We’ve been working on this for a long time and it looks like we may have a feasible solution,” said Pat Geary, chair of the Colrain Sewer District’s board of directors.
Jessica Atwood, director of planning with the Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG), said that following the closure of the plant, the district was awarded a $500,000 Rural Development Grant to hire engineers to find wastewater treatment solutions, as well as cover the short-term solution of trucking the waste to Montague to be treated.
“In December 2022, Barnhardt Manufacturing Co. announced it would be ceasing manufacturing in February 2023 and ceasing operations of its wastewater treatment facility in September 2023. Their wastewater treatment facility processes wastewater for their factory, as well as for residences across the street,” Atwood said. “The area has 19 residential buildings and chapels. Some of the buildings are duplexes, so it’s 26 housing units in total. Given the small size of the lots, traditional individual septic systems could not work on those properties, so a different type of solution had to be found.”
Engineer Matthew Corbin said the Wright-Pierce team looked at several options, all of which were not feasible. He said reopening the Barnhardt system would not be possible as its license has expired, and reopening the system, making repairs and finding a licensed operator would be cost-prohibitive.
Transporting the waste to the Shelburne Falls Wastewater Treatment Facility would require approximately 3 miles of new piping and significant upgrades to the plant, as it is already at capacity under its license. Installing a tight tank — a holding tank that would need to be pumped and transported to another facility — was also discussed. While current flow levels (approximately 14,000 gallons per day) are known, it is not known if those levels will change in the future, and while the Montague Clean Water Facility is currently accepting the district’s waste as a short-term solution, it is not clear if Montague would agree to a long-term agreement.
Corbin added that the idea of installing individual Title 5 septic systems would not be feasible because the properties within the district are too small to accommodate the required leach fields.
“They don’t have the land capacity, the land area, to meet the Title 5 regulations. You need a septic tank, you need a disposal field and a 100% redundant reserve area,” Corbin said. “And if you don’t have that, you need to have your own tight tank, which causes you to have a company come every two or three days to pump up your tank or it might back up into your house.”
Wright-Pierce landed on a community Title 5 system and further explored two options.
Engineer Anna Alegria explained that since the current collection system is within the protection zone for two public water supplies, waste disposal is more heavily regulated. The district could install piping and pump the waste to outside the nitrogen sensitive areas, but that would involve acquiring additional property through purchases or easements. Total construction and non-construction expenses, including police details, easements and engineering, would cost approximately $8.64 million. Annual operating costs, including debt service for the system, would cost $610,000.
The other option explored by engineers involved installing a treatment system within the nitrogen sensitive area. The company is recommending a Bioclere system that would be installed underground and treat the wastewater without the addition of chemicals.
According to the Bioclere product description on Aquapoint’s website, the system is “a modified trickling filter over a clarifier (settling tank) that is designed to treat wastewater with varying organic and nutrient concentrations. Its natural fixed-film biological treatment process is resilient, energy efficient, compact and simple to operate. Within the Bioclere filter, wastewater is evenly distributed over the surface of plastic media where microorganisms known as biomass attach themselves to the media and consume BOD/COD and ammonia-N. Residual solids from the treatment process settle in the clarifier below the filter and are evacuated by a recirculation pump while clean effluent leaves the system by gravity.”
Alegria said the treatment system could be installed at the Barnhardt property on Main Road, with a disposal field installed across the street, where there is currently a parking lot. Barnhardt Manufacturing has agreed to donate the 1.22 acres necessary for construction.
“Barnhardt is very much interested in working with the community on this, as they have been over the last three years. It’s been a long process. In terms of donating the land, we’ve agreed to do that and they’ll donate more if they need to,” Barnhardt representative Bob Durand said. “They have already started conversations about tearing down the blue building and the red building on site. There will be an asbestos assessment on that very shortly. … It’s going to require a lot of patience by the neighborhood, but I think at the end of the day, it’s the best thing for the homeowners.”
Alegria said installing a treatment system within the nitrogen sensitive area would be cheaper, costing approximately $3.55 million with annual operating costs of $217,000.
“After studying and analyzing everything that we considered for these two alternatives, we are recommending that 5A, the property within the [nitrogen sensitive area], as the recommended solution,” Alegria said.
She added that costs for both systems could be lower depending on whether the Colrain Sewer District is able to secure additional grants and earmarks.
“That’s considering the worst-case scenario that the district is not able to acquire any other grants, only loans,” Alegria said of the cost estimates.
In addition to the $500,000 Rural Development Grant, which funded the sewer study and draft engineering report, the district has secured a $1 million federal earmark.
Joe Slowinski, who lives just outside the Colrain Sewer District, wished to clarify that the $1 million earmark, and any additional state and federal grants, are still funded by taxpayers. He questioned how $3.55 million would be a feasible and worthwhile expense for 19 homes.
“How is any of this a fiscally responsible solution?” Slowinski asked. “You are proposing a system that costs as much as the current assessed value of the properties. Help me understand how it makes sense on any level.”
Slowinski suggested that some or all of the properties be condemned, saying that if some of the homes were torn down, it could make room for Title 5 septic systems, or if all the homes were condemned, no funding and no treatment system would be needed.
“Who’s looking out for the taxpayer?” Slowinski asked.
Selectboard Chair Emily Thurber said she “could not condone condemning 19 homes,” to which Slowinski replied, “Why?”
Griswoldville residents said there are more factors involved than just money, and that they wish to remain in their homes. Geary added that the district is working to find financial options that would not place any burden on the town.
“We want to work together with everybody to find a feasible option to solve this without costing the town of Colrain a lot of money,” Geary said.
Other attendees asked whether the system would be approved by the Board of Health. FRCOG Health Agent Randy Crochier said the plans have not yet been brought to the board for approval, and he has never worked with a Bioclere system before, so he “would have to do his homework.”
Other questions asked included what would happen if someone buys the Barnhardt plant, to which Atwood said they would have to build their own treatment system.
“If someone buys the rest of this property and wants to reuse it for another purpose, they cannot plug into the Colrain Sewer District Phase 1 collection, the community shared system,” Atwood explained. “However, there is sufficient land for them to have their own septic system.”
Members of the Wright-Pierce team said they would be finalizing their engineering report — which they presented to the town as a draft on Tuesday — by the end of the month, after which time the district can proceed with final engineering designs, seeking financing and pursuing permitting in anticipation of construction beginning in winter 2028.