ST. LOUIS — On Tuesday, Oct. 6, the St. Louis City Council is asked to approve $32,570 to OHM Advisors for “Project Supplement No. 25, Phase I – Planning” (item 11F). The money would pay for a notice of intent and application work to learn whether a new sanitary sewer pump station near North Union and Gratiot streets could qualify for a USDA Rural Development loan. The vote has not yet taken place.
What the city says it needs
The agenda statement from the director of public services says sewage from north of the Pine River now travels through an old sewer in North Union Street to the Union Street pump station near the athletic field, which handles most of the city’s flow. Because of “the prohibitive cost to upgrade this pump station and the river crossings,” it says, the city has had to reject earlier state loan offers. A new station on public works property would take about 30 percent of the flow off the existing one, which the statement says could prolong that station’s life and let future improvements be designed for a smaller capacity. The item is listed as not budgeted, paid from the sewer enterprise fund, with no budget amendment needed.
The estimates behind it
A June 2026 OHM memo in the same packet gives two separate cost opinions. Rebuilding N. Union Street from I&K Street to River Court, about 1,800 feet, with new storm and sanitary sewers and north-block water main, is put at $3,275,000. The lift station, a 2.0 million gallon-a-day station with a 600-foot force main to the treatment plant, carries a $3,750,000 engineer’s opinion: probable construction of $2,820,000 (range $2,400,000 to $4,230,000) plus $930,000 for engineering and related costs. The memo says larger pumps would still be needed at the Union Street station and that their cost is not in the estimate. It also says typical USDA loans run 40 years at 4 percent, with listed April–June 2026 rates of 2.875, 3.75 and 4.75 percent depending on a community’s category.
The larger fee behind the $32,570
The attached OHM supplement shows the $32,570 as one line of a longer scope. It lists $12,000 for a state historic-preservation clearance subconsultant and $20,570 for OHM’s application work, followed by design fees of $198,364 for the street contract and $132,800 for the lift station, for a total planning and design fee of $363,734. Only the $32,570 is in the motion. The supplement says early talks with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy are important because it is unclear how a new station could be permitted without raising the treatment plant’s 5.0 million-gallon peak design flow.
What the record does not say
The packet does not say whether USDA would offer a loan, what rate or term the city would get, or how sewer customers’ rates would be affected. It does not say whether the street and lift-station projects would be built together or when. The city, OHM Advisors and the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy have not been asked to comment for this report. Any of them is welcome to respond at contactus@gcwhistleblower.com, and any response will be published in full.