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Coke Plant Expansion: Can the City’s Infrastructure Take It?
by Mary Serreze | Jan 18, 2010 7:03 pm | Comment (1)
Posted to: City Hall, Zoning and Planning, Environment, Public Works
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A proposed expansion of Northampton’s Coca-Cola bottling plant will greatly increase biological oxygen demand (BOD) loading at the city’s wastewater treatment plant and draw an additional 400,000 gallons of tap water per day, according to Department of Public Works director Edward “Ned” Huntley.
Coke corporate headquarters in Atlanta is considering producing a line of “chilled juices” at the Northampton plant. If chosen by corporate and permitted by Northampton’s Planning Board, the plant would see a 13,000-square-foot addition to its 455,000-square-foot plant at 45 Industrial Drive.
On Thursday, Coca-Cola asked the Planning Board for site plan approval for the expansion, but the board decided to delay its decision until it receives technical reports from the Department of Public Works, reported the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
The Board of Public Works (BPW), at its January 6 meeting, voted to approve a contract with SEA Consultants to produce a technical memorandum that examines the capacity of Northampton’s wastewater treatment plant to handle increased flows, increased solids, and increased BOD loading, and the ability of the 35-year-old Bradford Street pumping station, which serves the city’s industrial park, to take on another estimated 200,000 gallons per day of outflow.
According to US EPA data, Northampton’s wastewater treatment plant has been out of compliance with BOD loading criteria for three quarters within the past three years.
“We have grave concerns that it will knock us out of compliance,” said Huntley, in addressing the BPW. “We’ve got to determine how we can accommodate Coca-Cola, if we can accommodate them at all, and, if so, what kind of upgrades might be needed.”
Huntley and the BPW discussed the possibility of crafting an agreement with Coca-Cola that would result in “shared responsibility” for the cost of infrastructure upgrades. “In the early nineties, when the Coca-Cola bottling plant expanded, it contributed to the cost of upgrading our wastewater treatment plant,” said Huntley.
Tags: WWTP, Coca-Cola, Industrial Park, BPW, DPW