There’s no delectable way to describe how more than $1 million will be used to maintain Selma’s wastewater treatment plant.

A contract signed Friday by members of the Selma Water Works and Sewer Board, along with engineer Ray Hogg and a Tuscaloosa contractor, ensures there will be no excess of gas leakage in Selma.

In technical terms, the $1.01 million project will replace three existing sludge digester tops and gas mixing systems at the Valley Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant on Marina Drive.

A digester is one of numerous integral steps in treating and cleaning wastewater.

“Basically, it digests sewage and cleans it up enough to discharge,” Hogg said.

Still don’t understand?

Every day, thousands of gallons of sewage water arrives at the wastewater treatment plant, which was built in 1968.

“Before that, everything went straight into the Alabama River,” Hogg said.

Upon arrival, solid waste is removed from the water. That solid waste is put in one of three digesters and gas is burned from the waste. At that point, the solid waste is dried and shipped to a landfill. Meanwhile, the water goes through a series of cleaning steps. Finally, it is chlorinated and poured into the Alabama River.

“There are a whole lot of [Alabama Department of Environmental Management] regulations we have to follow,” said Billy Hicks, a member of the water board.

That leads to the $1.01 million the water board will spend replacing the tops of the digesters. The tops of the three digesters, which hold nearly 200,000 cubic feet of waster, need to be replaced.

DRM Utilities, out of Tuscaloosa, was the lowest of three bidders for the project. It will take nearly nine months to complete putting new tops on the aged digesters.