Commission discusses moving Richmond wastewater pump station to 401 Bridge Street

The Richmond Water & Sewer Commission spent its July 23 special meeting focused on a proposal to relocate the town’s wastewater pump station to the parcel at 401 Bridge Street, which engineers flagged as a preferred alternative in a recent report.

Speaker 4 said the alternative site would allow a much smaller above-ground presence than the existing location: "if we do it where it is now, it's going to be about 9 feet tall," and the 401 Bridge Street option could instead be "a manhole, maybe 18 inches out of the ground type of thing with a control panel" tucked under a retaining wall. Commissioner discussion emphasized that the existing station sits low enough to risk violating the requirement to be above the 100-year floodplain; Speaker 1 said the station "has to go up at least a foot," making relocation or elevation necessary.

Commissioners asked staff to provide comparative cost estimates for (a) rebuilding the pump station on its current site with bypass pumping and other traffic/staging constraints and (b) installing the station at the 401 Bridge Street parcel. They also identified permitting and stormwater work that should be scoped and noted the visual impact near the Round Church as a material factor in site selection.

Next steps: staff will return with cost figures and design scoping at the next scheduled meeting; the commission did not take a final vote on site selection at this session.