Locals Only

The Stafford County Board of Supervisors has authorized repair work to be done at two Stafford wastewater treatment plants, one located in the Aquia District, in the northern portion of the county, and the other at Little Fall Run Treatment plant in the George Washington District, near Fredericksburg.

Both plants have had issues with distressed concrete due to the stormwater sewage filtration systems that treat and sanitize sewer runoff. Two filtration systems at the Aquia plant and another at the Little Fall Run plant have issues with concrete distress which includes cracks in the concrete surface. 

The Aquia plant handles an average water flow of six million gallons per day while the Little Fall Run plant's average amount is three-and-a-half million gallons each day.

The county has retained the services of Denmark-based consultancy group Ramboll Engineering to design the repairs of the filtration systems which will address the issues of cracks, surface damage, and joint repairs. The company that will carry out the actual repair work, Wisconsin-based Creative Maintenance Solutions LLC, will be nearly $470,000 for their labor out of the County's Public Works Utilities Enterprise Fund.

Creative Maintenance will use an epoxy-based composite product that has been found to be successful at addressing issues of concrete repair. The composite is created by United Kingdom-based company Belzona and can withstand pressures of over 10,000 pounds per square inch.

Another company, the Nokesville-based Keystone Waterproofing & Restoration, was also in the running for the repair contract but was underbid by Creative Maintenance. Creative made a bid of nearly $469,000 while Keystone's was higher at $657,800.

The repair projects at the wastewater treatment plants are being planned to occur in a way that will limit any interruption to the operations of both plants.

The Stafford County Board of Supervisors has approved the use of funds obtained from the American Rescue Act, the latest round of federal stimulus money, to pay a consulting firm on how to better prepare for disasters such as the coronavirus pandemic in the future.

The county will pay $80,208 to IEM, an emergency management firm based in Morrisville, N.C. According to its website, IEM works with government entities and private sector organizations around the world to improve disaster preparedness. Their company's areas of focus are in response and recovery, homeland security and defense, public health, cybersecurity, and critical infrastructure.

The County's approval of the use of these funds to pay IEM was also an official acceptance of the funds which will be received in two separate portions for a grand total of $28.7 million. The first portion was received in May 2021 totaling $14.9 million from which the payment to IEM will come.

Stafford County Public Schools are also expecting to receive $14.9 million with the stipulation that 20% of that total be used to address the extended gaps in student's education due to the closing down of schools due to the pandemic.

The County has also set aside a total of $1,7 million which is to be used for one-time and pandemic supported projects.

The second portion of the ARPA funding which would be a sum of $13.8 million is expected to be received by Stafford County sometime later this year.

Stafford County has lost 82 residents to the coronavirus, while neighbors Prince Willaim and Spostylvanaia lost 501 and 124 people, respectively.