An assessment of Washington’s wastewater system assets could get under way if the City Council approves a $152,000 purchase order for Rivers & Associates to perform the work.

That approval could come during the council’s meeting Monday. Most of the funds for the assessment come from a grant from the N.C. Department of Environment Quality’s Division of Water Infrastructure. The city’s contribution is $7,500 and a $2,250 grant fee, according to a city document. The grant fee can be included as part of the city’s $7,500 contribution, and in-kind service will apply as part of the city’s contribution, according to the document.

This project is one of several included in the city’s capital-improvements plan, which lists $6.6 million in proposed sewer-related projects in the next five fiscal years.

The focus of the assessment is to perform a critical analysis of the city’s gravity-collection sewer lines, pumping stations, force mains, treatment works and create a priority list of projects, among other scopes of work. As part of its work, the consultant would expand the city’s existing five-year sewer capital improvements plan into a 10-year plan, according to city document.

The city’s wastewater system also takes in wastewater from Chocowinity, which has an agreement with the city to treat its sewage.

Under North Carolina law, the city must begin planning to expand its wastewater-treatment system before it reaches 80-percent capacity and begin construction of improvements to an existing system or build a new system before the existing system reaches 90-percent capacity. The city’s existing treatment system has a capacity of 3.5 million gallons a day.

The city’s wastewater system includes approximately 74 miles of 6-inch to 24-inch gravity mains, 32 pumping stations with a network of 4-inch to 12-inch individual and common force mains to collect wastewater from nearly 5,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers for delivery to the city’s wastewater—treatment plant. That plant has a current capacity equal to 3.65 million gallons per day. After the wastewater passes through the plant, the highly treated effluent is discharged into the Tar-Pamlico River Basin. Residuals remaining after the treatment process are stabilized and disposed of by land application provided by contract sludge-disposal contractors.