Pittsfield DPW Seeks $15.2M for Wastewater PlantBy Brittany Polito, iBerkshires Staff
05:17AM / Monday, November 17, 2025 | |
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Department of Public Works is requesting the City Council authorize borrowing up to $15.2 million for improvements to the wastewater treatment plant.
On Thursday, the City Council referred the request to the Finance subcommittee. Funding would support a new administration and laboratory building at the plant.
"The existing Laboratory Building, initially constructed in 1938 and adapted for plant use in 1973, no
longer meets current needs," Commissioner of Public Works and Utilities Ricardo Morales wrote in a communique to the council.
"Together with inadequate administration facilities, the proposed building will address many issues currently affecting the proper management and operations of the facility."
Mold, layout issues, rodents, ineffective air conditioning, and insufficient lab space were cited as conditions that necessitate the project. This means samples have to be sent to external labs, causing delays, while the new lab will allow same-day analysis.
Morales explained that this will enhance operational efficiency and reduce nutrient loads to the Housatonic River.
"Due to the limited bench and hood space and insufficient locations of electrical receptacles in the existing laboratory facility, samples that are taken for nitrogen and phosphorus measurements are sent to an outside laboratory for analysis, with the results being available days or weeks after the sampling event, which severely hampers process control," the request reads.
"The time lag between sample collection and access to the data prohibits the use of the data for operational control and optimization of nutrient removal."
The design is complete, and Kleinfelder has been contracted for bidding. Market volatility and supply chain issues have presented bidding challenges in the past, as the project was advertised for bids in March and July of 2022, and both received one bidder that was over budget.
With authorization, bidding would occur this winter with construction expected in the spring and summer of 2026. Construction and remaining engineering services are estimated to cost $15,225,000.
In 2023, Eversource came to Pittsfield to deliver a $140,000 check for the wastewater treatment plant's energy-saving makeover that began in 2020.
With lighting upgrades, heat pumps, variable frequency drives on heating, ventilation, and air conditioning equipment, aeration ammonia controls, new aeration blowers, and a compressed air mixing system, the plant saw an annual reduction of 560,000 kilowatt-hours of energy consumption. In 13 years, the upgrades are expected to save 6.8 million kWh.
This is not the only public utilities project that the city is looking into.
Last month, the Department of Public Works presented plans to improve the city's two water plants, Cleveland and Ashley, which were built in 1985. At the October 27 meeting, Morales explained that he wanted the council to be aware of the city's infrastructure needs and challenges.
"Upgrades are required at both facilities to allow the city to achieve regulatory compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act, reestablish the capacity that the plants were originally designed for, provide redundancy with the equipment, improve the reliability of the water that the city is putting into the distribution system, improve the operability of the facility to make it more operator friendly for the plant operators," said Doug Gove, of AECOM.
"And then to address maintenance challenges that are ongoing right now, a lot of which are due to the fact that the equipment has passed its useful life, and there are no spare parts for all the equipments that are up there."
The team recently wrapped up a concept and will move forward with a preliminary design and cost estimate.
Morales said the project is a massive undertaking for the city and for the enterprise fund. Planners hope to have a funding request to get the project to 100 percent design over the next year.
"Understandably so, we are preparing our finances to be able to take on something like this," he said.
"At the moment, there's no number that we can just say this is what we need to go for, and that's why we're not just presenting something to you tonight."
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