1975-01-20 Regular Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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i O - Section IV Alternatives to` the Proposed Action A number of alternatives have been considered in relation to improving the domestic waste treatment system for the City of La Porte. These are discussed in the following paragraphs. • Considering first the alternative of taking no action, this means that both sewage treatment plants would stay in service and both collection systems which have been found to experience excessive infiltration/inflow would not be repaired. There are no positive aspects to this action and the bad conditions that now exist will remain. These are a) the Fairmont Park plant does not meet the water quality parameters for discharges into the Clear Lake watershed and b) both systems bypass large quantities of raw sewage to their receiving waters in times of moderate to heavy rainfall. A second alternate would be to repair no lines and increase the hydraulic capacity of both plants to avoid bypassing. Along with this plant work, the Fairmont Park facility could be upgraded to meet the required para- meters. This has the bad aspect of duplicating treatment effort with its doubled maintenance and operating costs as well as continuing to add to the biological loading of the Clear Lake watershed. A third alternate would include repair of the lines to eliminate 80q or more of the infiltration/inflow and keep both plants operating. Under these conditions the hydraulic capacities of the plants are adequate but it does not allow for .any significant population growth. Of course, the Fairmont Park plant would have to be upgraded to produce the required effluent qualities. This alternate has the same disadvantage economically as the one just discussed. A final alternate, which approches the proposed system, would be to do no line repair, abandon the Fairmont Park plant, and convey that that effluent to an enlarged main La Porte plant. This accomplishes the removal of effluent from the Clear Lake watershed and avoids bypassing raw sewage. This scheme, however, is unattractive economically because of the large line size which would be required as well as the unusually large size the plant facilities would have to be. Section V Relationship Between Local Short-Term Uses of Man's Environment and the Maintenance and Enhancement of Long-Term Productivity There are few, if any, cumulative or long term effects the proposed pro- ject would have which would significantly reduce the state of the environment for future generations. The only conceivable adverse effect will be that if, in the future, the population around Galveston Bay in- creases tremendously and .numerous other discharges are added to that body of water with effluent parameters similar to those proposed, there could