The Cities of Sutter Creek, Jackson and Amador City, the Amador Water Agency, the Amador Regional Sanitation Authority, and engineers HDR and ECO Logic had all met previously regarding the issue on October 25th. At that meeting they decided to evaluate Regional Treatment alternatives of sewage treatment by looking to expand the amount of wastewater that can be treated. This is important to the efficiency of the current wastewater processing, as well as, to allow for continued growth and expansion in many areas of the county.

The main idea consists of a regional wastewater plant in either Martell or Sutter Creek, or sub-regional plants in both Martell and Sutter Creek. The Martell Alternative consists of constructing a plant along Hwy. 88, west of Martell. Wastewater would be pumped from Sutter Creek, including the new Gold Rush subdivision, Amador City, the Martell area, and the city of Jackson to the new Regional plant. This alternative, the Martell Plant, also includes plans for a large storage facility to be constructed in the Martell area and another one in the future down Hwy. 88 in the Jackson Valley area. The plan also includes the ability to convey treated wastewater to agricultural reuses along the Hwy. 88 corridor and into the ARSA system, with the possibility of also using tertiary effluent water to irrigate the Gold Rush Golf Course. In the interim, shorter term alternatives being considered include adding capacity to the existing Sutter Creek plant. In the short term this could handle wastewater flows until the regional plant is constructed allowing for new hook ups to serve both Martell and Sutter Creek.

The Sutter Creek Regional Wastewater Plant Alternative is nearly identical to the first plan with a plant being constructed in Sutter Creek instead of Martell. Also there is one even bigger difference; costs. A Sutter Creek Regional Wastewater Plant is a lot more attractive at this point as Sutter Creek has already began to explore the option of the plant and has hired a consultant. The idea is to convey wastewater from Amador City, Sutter Creek and Gold Rush to the existing Sutter Creek Plant. Wastewater from Martell, Jackson, and Amador County will be conveyed to the Martell Plant.

Under these alternative concepts capacity will be added to the Sutter Creek plant to handle wastewater flows until the regional plant is constructed. After these 3 alternatives were developed and discussed at the meeting the next step was to establish the costs per unit for all of the components, such as pipelines, storage facilities and so on. This began with determining the size and lengths of: the treatment plant and filter capacities, pump station capacity, pipeline sizes, and storage needs.

Based upon this information they then estimated the total construction costs and the estimated operation and maintenance costs for each alternative.  For each project they estimated high and low cost estimates. For all three alternatives, the estimated costs are essentially the same, estimated at a low of just below 54 million dollars. The high costs range from 89 million to 92 million for the two plant alternative.

As far as time tables the Martell plant would take the longest being completed sometime in early 2013. All other alternatives are estimated to be completed in 2012. The meeting also emphasized that wastewater treatment and flows at the current Sutter Creek plant will exceed capacity in about one year giving further urgency to the situation. The goal of the group is to select the treatment option and nail down a plan in the next 100 days.