Yelm's $36 million water reclamation facility project nearing completion

One of the City of Yelm’s most expensive projects ever is nearing completion, as Cody Colt, Yelm’s Public Works director, anticipates the $36 million water reclamation facility (WRF) project to power up in March 2025.

Colt told the Nisqually Valley News that the WRF project is going “really well,” and that it’s currently on budget. The city is currently waiting on the arrival of one specific electrical part, a switchgear, which Colt believes will arrive in January 2025. He added that once the switchgear arrives, power can be transferred to the new plant to officially begin the startup process.

“We ordered that a year ago, but there’s a two-year delay on the switchgear. We should have it early next year, January of next year. That’s the last thing we’re waiting on,” Colt said. “We estimate that in about March of next year, we’ll actually turn the plant on with all of the new equipment, so we’ll be able to take new flows. There’s a startup sequence we have to go through with the person who built it, and Parametrix, our engineer, to get everything online. That’ll take a couple months to do, but March is the date we’ll turn everything on and start that startup process.”

Colt said the new WRF plant was needed to accommodate city wastewater as the City of Yelm was approaching the maximum flow capacity due to the construction of new houses in the area. He added that the city wanted to upgrade the plant before flow capacity became a bigger issue.

“This plant will allow us to go to 2045 or longer for upgrades. We won’t have to do anything at the plant until then,” Colt said. “Without inflation factored, it’s about a $36 million project for everything we’re doing. The majority of that is through a loan from the Department of Ecology. We also got a couple of state-funded grants, and our rate payers are paying for the solids side. We’ve been saving up for a project like this for a while.”

With the new WRF plant, Colt said the city will have a septic-receiving station once again. He said the city used to be able to take in waste from RVs and mobile food trucks, and that service will once again be offered with the completion of the project. In addition to adding a waste station, Colt said one or two new sewer lines are likely to be added.

With the completion of the WRF plant expected sometime next year, Colt said the Public Works Department could begin hosting tours of the plant, along with different training opportunities.

“High school students that maybe want to get into this field could tour a state-of-the-art plant and see what it’s like so we could create a pipeline between the school and us, which would be really awesome,” Colt said. “We’d also be able to do training on site, or classes, because we’ll be a local plant in Thurston County that people can go to, that’s readily accessible and very advanced.”

He added that the department could host classes through different onsite organizations for waste workers just starting in the field or needing more training.

“It is a big project, and our project managers Brad Chatwood and Pat Hughes have been great about managing it. It will be helpful to have that big project off our shoulders,” Colt said. “A lot of projects coming up will be smaller, even though they seem big. Rhoton Road, Veterans Memorial, those are smaller projects. There aren’t as many moving parts. We’ll roll into the next projects just as we always do.”