Problems with two pieces of equipment at Vicksburg’s wastewater treatment plant on Rifle Range Road have forced the city Board of Mayor and Aldermen to hire an engineer to design repairs for the problem areas.

The Board at its Monday meeting approved a $16,000 agreement with Allen & Hoshall to design improvements to the plant’s trickling filter No. 2 and its recirculation valve.

Public Works Director Garnet Van Norman said the trickling filter is part of the wastewater treatment process, while the recirculation valve moves the treated water back through the plant.

“Since I’ve been here, we’ve tried to repair it (the trickling filter) three or four times,” Van Norman said. “We thought we had it fixed the last time, but we didn’t. We need to figure out what’s wrong with it. It’s got to be fixed.”

He said the plant has two trickling filters that are used to treat and clean the water.

“One’s working and the other one isn’t, and we’ve got to do something about it,” he said.

When water goes through the plant, he said, it first goes through a grit chamber to remove heavy waste items and then into the trickling filter, which has the bacteria to clean the water.

“It’s a real simple process and it works real good,” Van Norman said.

He said the recirculating valve, which was installed when the plant went online in 1973, probably needs to be replaced.

“We’ve had to replace just most everything down there,” Van Norman said. “We haven’t had problems with (trickling filter) No. 1, but No. 2, we’ve had problems with it. We’ll take it offline, get into it and see what we have to do.”