Broken Arrow awards $1.84m County Line sewer reroute after backflow discovery
City of Broken Arrow Utilities Department, Oklahoma · Meeting date: November 3, 2026 · Published: November 4, 2026
The new sanitary sewer line will remove flows from the County Line Industrial Park, including Blue Bell and future development, from a residential-area system. The project followed an investigation prompted by a resident's concerns over backflow.
Key points
- Broken Arrow Municipal Authority approved a $1,839,549 contract with King Excavating, the lowest responsible bidder, for a new County Line Industrial Park sanitary sewer line.
- Staff received 11 bids for the project.
- The line will carry wastewater along Highway 51 to the Wagoner County trunk sewer line, bypassing the residential area.
- Staff said industrial discharge releases coinciding with rain events had caused backflows in the existing system.
- The project is designed to serve the entire industrial park and future build-out on undeveloped land in the area.
Full report
Broken Arrow Municipal Authority has approved a $1.84 million sewer project intended to eliminate wastewater backflows affecting a residential area near the County Line Industrial Park.
King Excavating was awarded the contract for $1,839,549 after submitting the lowest responsible bid among 11 bidders. The project was not part of the authority's long-range capital programme, according to engineering and construction director Charlie Bright, but was developed after a resident raised concerns about backflow in a backyard during discussion of a proposed County Line development more than a year earlier.
City staff subsequently investigated the system and introduced immediate measures before developing a permanent solution. Bright told the authority that Blue Bell had been condensing the periods in which it released wastewater to align with its operating schedules. This was generally not a problem, he said, but backflows occurred when those releases coincided with rain events.
The new line will collect wastewater from the entire industrial park, rather than only Blue Bell, and divert it out of the residential area. It will run along Highway 51 and ultimately connect to the Wagoner County trunk sewer line, which carries the flow to the treatment plant.
By removing industrial-park wastewater from the neighbourhood system, the authority expects the existing line through the residential area to be adequate for the flows it continues to receive. The project is also intended to accommodate future development on undeveloped land within the industrial-park area.
The authority also approved Amendment No. 3 to the design contract for the RMUA Hickey Creek lift station. The amendment covers final design work for a joint Broken Arrow-Tulsa lift-station upgrade planned at 42mgd. The stated amendment amount was $1,114,878, while Broken Arrow Municipal Authority's share of the joint project is 50%.
This summary was generated by AI based on the source document and may contain errors.
Source: Broken Arrow City Council, City of Broken Arrow Utilities Department