FERRIDAY — Backwash pumps that haven’t worked for three years will be back and working in the Ferriday water plant next week, Mayor Glen McGlothin said.

Currently, the water plant has a borrowed pump in the backwash area, but it wasn’t large enough to handle the amount of water going through the plant.

Having the pumps, which were rebuilt to the tune of more than $30,000 apiece, will eliminate a lot of problems, McGlothin said.

“That’s why we kept running out of water, because it had to keep going through the backwash (area),” McGlothin said.

Along with the rebuilt pumps, new chlorinators and potassium permanganate pumps will be installed in the plant, he said.

Even though the water plant is failing and the town plans to eventually abandon it for a new plant, McGlothin said the immediate repairs are necessary to keep the structure running for the next three years while the new plant is being built.

Included in the planned repairs is a new water storage tank, for which the town is currently accepting bids.

The estimated cost for the new tank is $850,000 to $950,000, and McGlothin said the new tank will ultimately be incorporated into the new plant.

The existing tank at the plant, which is so damaged that the Department of Health and Hospitals placed the town on a boil-water notice in early May, cannot be saved, McGlothin said.

“The DHH had people come in to look at it, and they said it was too far gone,” he said.

It’s possible the old tank could be sold for scrap iron, he said.

“Hopefully we can get something out of it, because that’s all it’s good for,” he said.

Having the new tank in place will help get the town off of the boil-water notice, and if a bid is low enough to start work as soon as bids are opened, it is possible the new tank could be installed and the town off the order as early as December, McGlothin said.

“That’s seven months on a boil order, and that’s driving me crazy,” he said.

The plans for the new plant are still in development, and engineer Bryant Hammett is working on the preliminary engineering report for the plant.

The area’s congressional delegation has requested $6 million in the 2010 national budget for the town to build the new plant.

“It will come through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and I am hoping part of it is stimulus money so we don’t have to pay it back,” McGlothin said. “Since we have paid for one plant that didn’t work right, I was hoping we would, not get a pass, but at least a discount on this.”

The new water treatment plant will tentatively be located on the 35 acres next to the existing one, and plans are to drill wells near Vidalia rather than the current method of drawing surface water from Old River.

The water line to the intake structure for the existing plant already runs nearly to Vidalia, so some of the infrastructure is already in place, McGlothin said.

“(The government is) holding us to a higher standard, so Bryant is having to do (the preliminary engineering report) very gingerly, so when we build a plant they know we are building a plant that will last a long time and will work,” he said. “They have said with this next one, before we spend the money we are going to make sure it is going to work.”