UNIONTOWN — Engineers and elected officials are considering all options to finally fix the wastewater issues in Uniontown — including one option all too familiar for residents there.

“One of the options is to build more sprayfields,” said John Stevens, professional engineer with Sentell Engineering. “But, you’ve got to have enough to take care of what’s going on.”

The city currently has two sprayfields; the older of which has been the source of sewage leaks for more than a decade, and a second field, built by Sentell, has not been used because of concerns about its construction and the inability of treated wastewater to percolate into the ground.

Currently, water is treated at a preliminary treatment lagoon before being pumped to the operational sprayfield. Stevens said his firm has considered several options to fully treat the water; including building more sprayfields, which could handle the amount of wastewater the city produces, as well as pumping the treated water to a nearby river or stream instead of using the existing sprayfields.

“We have to have somewhere, no matter what, to put the waste. It would either have to go to a sprayfield or it has to go to a river or major creek somewhere,” Stevens said. “It’s not enough, so we are trying to find what we can do. We are looking at all options available.”

Stevens said he has heard estimates that the size of new sprayfields would have to be roughly ten times the size of the two sprayfields in place — which together cover 100 acres.

“If the ground percolated — or absorbed — the treated water real well in the sprayfields, it wouldn’t take as much land,” Stevens said. “But since it doesn’t, it will take a lot more land.”

Uniontown Mayor Jamaal Hunter said he is meeting with officials from Sentell Engineering, as well as a second engineering firm — which he declined to name —over the next week to hear proposals for the project.

“We’re exploring all of our options. We want to see who has the best game plan to get it done,” Hunter said. “Any plan we are going to pursue from here out is not going to be a band-aid fix. It’s going to be a plan that addresses the existing problems we have. They are going to be drawing up proposals of what they feel is out best route to go to get into compliance.”

While Hunter is meeting with a second engineering firm, he said he has few complaints about the work Sentell has done to this point.

“My relationship with Sentell is a great relationship. Many of the things we’ve been able to accomplish in the past could not have been possible without the help of Sentell,” Hunter said. “There have been numerous positives to the relationship, especially when you look at how we have engaged in contracts with them, and they’ve been so generous and gracious to wait until we have the funds available to pay them. They’ve been more than understanding of our financial situation.”

After millions of public and private dollars have already been spent on the overhaul of the city’s entire wastewater treatment system, Stevens said Sentell is committed to finding the best solution to the problem.

“We are spending our company money right now,” Stevens said. “There is no guarantee it will be funded, and we spent thousands already. What we’ve been looking for lately is a way to send it to the Black Warrior River.”

Stevens said the Black Warrior River, which is roughly 21 miles from Uniontown, is the best place to pump the treated wastewater.

“We’ve looked at streams before we considered the other rivers, but there aren’t any that are big enough,” Stevens said. “Uniontown sits on an upside-down bowl. Water flows in almost every direction away from there, and there is no major stream in town at all.”

After hearing proposals from both engineering firms, Hunter said he will take the best options before the city council.

“After we have the meetings, I will sit down with the council with both proposals and the council will make the ultimate decision on who to hire,” Hunter said.

The Uniontown city council’s next meeting is scheduled to take place Monday, July 7 at 6 p.m. in the City Hall Council Chambers.