Owensboro Municipal Utilities held a work session on Thursday where they voted in favor of changing the piping at Cavin lagoon and repurposing the ponds into a sludge disposal pond.
The transformation is rather simple. OMU General Manager Kevin Frizzell said that the sludge is nothing like power plant discharge, and all that’s needed is some grading and sloping in the ponds to make sure the final product is prepared. Frizzell noted that since they are closing the Elmer Smith pond, there is still land around it to build some generators but they will “never build a new coal power plant.”
The motion passed unanimously and the board went about presenting the year-end capital update and regulatory update.
When it came to notable projects — like Bluegrass Commons, Shoppes at 380 (the old Texas Gas building on Frederica Street) and the Gateway Commons — OMU reported being significantly under budget for the latter.
“We ended up installing all of our infrastructure, and as of two weeks ago all of our infrastructure in Bluegrass Commons is completely installed,” Frizzell said. “So all we have now is just service connecting and building a house.”
Bluegrass Commons, however, was significantly over budget, coming in at $277,607 when it was allotted $100,000. The difference from the Shoppes at 380 and Gateway Commons, was used to compensate for the excess expenditures for Bluegrass Commons.
