Due to the heavy rains from earlier in the year, the City of Ripon’s Waste Water Treatment Plant disposal pond experienced some capacity issues.

“We have seven percolation ponds – all were at full capacity back in March,” said Public Works Director James Pease at Monday’s special meeting of the Ripon City Council.

Elected leaders approved bringing on Triple M Enterprise Inc. to perform restoration work on two of those seven percolation ponds. Cost is to not exceed $58,200 paid via the Sewer Enterprise Capital Fund.

He noted that a consultant took a soil analysis on the two ponds, which had built up several inches of sediment or sludge over time.

Plans call for storing this material within the plant.

Council, in March, approved a change order on the work being done by Diede Construction at the nearby Fleet Maintenance Facility (the new city corporate yard project). This called for raising the elevation of the existing berm at the ponds in order to provide additional storage capacity following the wet weather.

The rainwater, in addition, doubled the volume that typically would be discharged into the ponds. Water needed to be disposed via percolation yet little could be done to increase the percolation rates at that point.

Pease said that the goal now is for Triple M Enterprise to begin and complete the work “as fast as possible” before the next rain.