NewsBreaking ground on Harrodsburg WTP expansion
Harrodsburg, KY | May 23, 2011
Representatives from W. Rogers Company and GRW Engineers joined Harrodsburg officials in a ceremonial groundbreaking Monday, May 9th on the Harrodsburg water treatment plant expansion.
The expansion will increase the plant's treatment capacity from 4 million gallons a day to 6 million gallons a day.
Mayor Eddie Long emphasized the importance of this expansion and how it has already had a significant economic impact on Harrodsburg.
Shortly, after this project was awarded, Wausau Paper announced a $220 million expansion in Harrodsburg, which will create over 400 jobs and would not have been possible without these improvements to the infrastructure.
Beyond the economic impact, this project is very significant to W. Rogers Company for many reasons.
President Warren Rogers explained in 1980, W. Rogers Company completed the first expansion to this plant. During that expansion, Tom McConathy was the superintendent on a portion of the project, and now Tom is the project manager on the current expansion as well as vice president of W. Rogers Company.
Going back even further, Rogers explained, in 1955 his father was the project manager for Clark, Stewart & Wood, which was the contractor that built the original plant.
This $12 million expansion project is being paid for with a $1 million grant from the Community Development Block, a $3.3 million grant from Rural Development, and a $7.7 million Rural Development low interest loan.
Attendees also included representatives from the Rural Development Authority, Bluegrass Area Development, State Representative Kim King, Congressman Ben Chandler, a representative from Senator Rand Paul's office, local officials and employees.