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Wilsonville officials want to get out of the sewer business. They’re looking for a company to not just design and build improvements to the city’s sewage treatment plant, but to run the city-owned plant as well.

It’s not uncommon for cities to contract out their sewage treatment, said Francis Malinosky-Rummell, an engineer with Portland Engineering Inc., which handles maintenance and controls for Wilsonville’s sewage treatment plant. But having a single proposal to design, build and operate a plant is rarer.

鈥淚t’s the 鈥榦perate’ part that’s a little unusual,鈥� Malinosky-Rummell said. 鈥淏ut it’s becoming a little more common.鈥�

Only a few companies active locally have the ability to build and run a plant, said Brian Carlson, public works director with the city of Vancouver, Wash. One of those is Veolia Water, which already operates Wilsonville’s water treatment plant. Another is CH2M HILL OMI, which runs sewage treatment plants in Dallas, Ore., and Spokane County, Wash.

Vancouver has relied on Veolia for 31 years, Carlson said. The company runs Vancouver’s two sewage treatment plants and several of its major pump stations.

Smaller cities 鈥� or smaller companies 鈥� can sometimes struggle to keep a sewage treatment running according to myriad and ever-changing regulations, Carlson said. That’s the advantage of employing a large company such as Veolia, he said.

鈥淏eing a large company, they’re able to rely on their expertise within the company in terms of 鈥� corporate safety programs, and in being able to bring in specialists when needed,鈥� Carlson said. 鈥淲ith wastewater treatment plants, and some of the more sophisticated water treatment plants, you have to have licensed and specialized operators.鈥�

Those professionals are difficult to recruit and difficult to replace, Carlson said. 鈥淪ome of my colleagues in smaller cities, when their chief operator moved on, had difficulty replacing them.鈥�

There’s no guarantee that a large company won’t fold or walk away or rebid a contract at ridiculous rates, Carlson said. But there’s enough competition that the city wouldn’t be up a creek if that happened.

鈥淭here are a couple other national and international companies,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t’s competitive enough so that we’re not necessarily worried.鈥�

Wilsonville’s request for qualifications calls for an expansion of its 3-million-gallons-per-day plant to handle an average flow of 7 million gallons per day. The project also involves operating and maintaining eight lift stations and the existing collection system.

The deadline for companies or teams to submit their qualifications is Oct. 10. After that point, Wilsonville will put together a 10-percent design, Malinosky-Rummell said.

Then, qualified companies can assemble bids that include more detailed design documents as part of their final proposals, he said.

There’s a mandatory pre-bid meeting at 9 a.m. on Sept. 29 at City Hall, 29799 Town Center Loop E. in Wilsonville.