McMinnville breaks ground on water treatment plant upgrades

Ground has been broken on the first major upgrade to McMinnville’s water treatment plant in 64 years. The McMinnville Board of Mayor and Aldermen approved a $15,626,000 bid to overhaul the facility, originally built in 1961. Funding for the project comes from $6 million in loans, more than $7.5 million in grand funding and more than $3 million in water department reserves. A completely new facility will be placed behind the current treatment plant, containing five new filters, controls, office space, pipe gallery, and a state-of-the-art treatment room. The new facility will replace the previous manual controls with computerized ones with manual backups. The new facility will be able to process 5 million gallons of water a day and keep seven in storage, well above the 1.4 to 3.04 million currently processed.