UNIONTOWN — After spending $4.4 million in an attempt to improve Uniontown’s aging wastewater treatment system, officials have started searching for more funding for an alternative treatment plan.

A wide range of issues with the city’s antiquated treatment systems — including leaking pipes, several instances of wastewater seeping in to nearby creeks and two wastewater spray fields that cannot handle the current water usage levels — has left city leaders and engineers looking for a way to pump treated water elsewhere.

“Our plan is to seek more funding and build a pipeline to have the treated water pumped to a river somewhere,” John Stevens, professional engineer with Sentell Engineering, Inc. “We are measuring and calculating to find the best site for the pipeline, but we haven’t determined where it will be located yet.”

Currently, the city’s wastewater is treated in a primary treatment lagoon and pumped to a nearby spray field.

Stevens said both of the city’s wastewater treatment spray fields — one recently completed by Sentell, and a second, which has been used for decades — are likely to only be used as emergency backups in the future, in the event a pump or length of piping in the yet-to-be-built pipeline fails.

Stevens said he is in the process of measuring different routes a planned pipe could be laid to carry the treated water to either the Black Warrior River or the Alabama River.

“We are going to have to pump it to a nearby river because there is so much water coming through the system that it is in danger of flooding almost constantly,” Stevens said.

Stevens said there are two reasons the newest spray field has not been used; the soil at the spray field is composed of too much clay to allow the treated water to percolate into the ground, and the city’s old water meters were not accurately recording the amount of water used in the community every day.

“We were given initial numbers on the amount of water the system would need to handle that were not right. That affected everything we’ve done,” Stevens said.

Even with the spray fields playing a much smaller role in the city’s future wastewater treatment plan, Mayor Jamaal Hunter said the work to upgrade the city’s aging treatment facilities has not been a waste.

“A lot of good came out of the project,” Hunter said. “We were able to put in new water meters so we could accurately measure how much water we are selling. We were able to perform smoke tests on the pipes in the city and make repairs where we found leaks.”

Hunter said the breadth of the project, which also included upgrades to the system’s primary wastewater treatment lagoon, meant the system has improved, even if the spray fields are written off.

“Due to the size of the project, very little money was actually spent on the spray fields and we will not get out of the spray field what we intended at first,” Hunter said. “But, I think over all, the project was still good for the community.”

Uniontown resident Ben Eaton, who is also a member of the Blackbelt Citizens of Uniontown Fighting for Health and Justice, said he doesn’t think the spray fields should even serve as a back up for the piping system.

“Why would they consider using them as a back up,” Eaton asked. “In my opinion, the newest spray field should not be used at all.”

When new water meters were installed, Stevens said engineers discovered the amount of water needing to be treated was far above the amount both spray fields could treat.

“Uniontown has poor soil quality. That’s why people can’t have septic tanks here,” Stevens said. “And we were told the soil at the new spray field site was not good, but adequate. We were told it would have worked.”

Hunter said he is hopeful funding can be found in the near future so work on the pipeline can proceed.

“I definitely want us to find funding for the project within the next 60 days. That is my timeline,” Hunter said.