Muskogee City Council approves $97 million bid for new wastewater treatment plant
11/25/2025 10:59am
MUSKOGEE, Okla. — The Muskogee City Council has approved a nearly $97 million bid to repair the city’s wastewater treatment plant.
The City must do this to comply with a Consent Order from ODEQ order from 2021.
The flood in 2019 hit the plant and over half of its components were damaged in it. An engineering report was conducted by HUB Engineering which estimated that a new plant design and construction would cost approximately $72 million at the time of construction, forecasting the price out around three to four years from the initial estimate.
HUB partnered with Olsson, who was selected for the design of the plant. Designing began in 2023 using $72 million as a target figure. During the bidding process, several bidders dropped out for various reasons. Crossland Heavy was left as the sole bidder.
The City of Muskogee says that due to inflation, tariffs and a high number of projects due to ARPA funding, the bid was over budget. After working with Crossland Heavy and the city’s engineering team, each item was qualified and verified and found to be within a reasonable range given the circumstances. The city says they legally had to accept the bid.
At the City Council meeting last night, residents shared their concerns about the cost of the project.
“We can’t continue to run Muskogee like this,” said Ryan Lowe. “And I implore you tonight to do the right thing and instead of always saying ‘we’re in crisis mode this is an emergency and lets just run this through’, I would also like to know this is probably one of the largest projects we’ve ever put through in the City of Muskogee. I’ve never heard of one this big. How can we rush this through with one bid?”
Lowe also went on to read out why the other bidders dropped out of the project which included reasons saying the company couldn’t make it fit and give it proper attention with other opportunities on the table. He said other companies stated they couldn’t make it fit into their schedule. Lowe did not name the companies.
The City of Muskogee increased rates for water, sewer, storm water and sanitation which were to fund the new wastewater treatment plant.
