On September 8, 2026, the Greenfield City Council unanimously cut the city’s packaged membrane bioreactor contract by nearly $5 million. The procurement agreement with Cloacina went from $31.08 million to $25.94 million. The plant upgrade around that equipment is still estimated at $111.3 million, paid for through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund.
That is not a story about a project shrinking. It is a story about a city protecting the rest of the job before construction prices eat it.
Public Works Director Jamie Tugel told the council the renegotiated contract saves almost $5 million and frees money for the remainder of the wastewater treatment upgrade. Mayor Bob White put the same point more bluntly: the savings should help with cost overruns, and the hope is to stay under $111 million. Councilmember Belen Garcia said it was good to see a bill go down instead of up.
Anyone who has taken a treatment plant from design into a bid knows why that reaction matters. Equipment is only one line. The site, the pipelines, the buildings, the electrical, and the unknowns still have to get built. If the process skid is oversized for a budget that will not stretch, something else gets cut later, usually in a worse place.
They did not just ask for a discount
The lower number came out of design-phase talks among the city, HydroScience Engineers, and Cloacina. The original Cloacina agreement, approved in February 2024, was about $30.93 million, plus $150,000 for design support. The amended deal keeps that $150,000 as Phase 1 design support and sets Phase 2 equipment at $25.94 million.
The scope changed with the price:
- One of four MBR treatment trains came out of Cloacina’s scope.
- Capacity and redundancy were added to the three trains that stayed.
- Two sludge dewatering units were added, along with shade awnings over equipment skids.
- The low-flow configuration came off the three MBR trains.
- Excess anoxic mixers came out.
- The type of chemical metering pumps and membranes changed.
- Spare parts were added, and the schedule was adjusted.
That is a different plant, not a cheaper copy of the same one. Four trains became three, with the remaining trains asked to carry more of the load and more backup. Dewatering, which every operator eventually has to deal with, moved into the package instead of being left as a later problem. Spare parts showed up on purpose. Shade over the skids is a small line that keeps equipment out of the sun in a Salinas Valley summer.
Tugel said the city has been looking for cuts because prices keep rising as the project moves toward construction. That is the real constraint. A number that looked responsible in 2024 does not automatically survive 2026 bid day.
What this means if you are the one paying for the plant
Greenfield is a small city buying a factory-built MBR instead of inventing a custom process on site. Packaged treatment is often the right call for a community that needs reliable treatment without staffing a design-build science project. It is not a way to skip the budget conversation.
A few things in this vote are worth copying, whether the buyer is a city, a special district, or a developer staring at a package plant for a community that cannot wait on a regional sewer.
Price the plant you will actually run, not the one that looks complete on a process diagram. A fourth train can be the right answer. It can also be the line that forces you to short the collection system, the electrical building, or the dewatering the operators will live with. Greenfield took a train out and put redundancy back into the three that remained. That is a design decision, not a percentage off the quote.
Spend the savings where construction will hurt. The council did not treat $5 million as found money. Tugel’s point was that it has to fund the rest of the upgrade. Mayor White’s point was cost overruns. If a value-engineering cut does not land in the construction contingency, it was not a cut. It was a delay.
Do this in design, not after the bid. The changes happened while HydroScience and Cloacina were still refining the system: trains, mixers, pumps, membranes, dewatering, spares, schedule. After bids are in, the same conversation becomes a change order. Before bids, it is scope.
Dewatering and spares are not extras. Adding two dewatering units while removing a train is a tell. The city was not only chasing a lower equipment number. It was moving operating reality into the contract. A plant you can afford on paper and cannot dewater, shade, or spare-parts is not a plant you can afford.
The number that still matters
$25.94 million is not the project. $111.3 million is. The Clean Water State Revolving Fund is covering planning, design, environmental work, and construction, which is how a city this size even attempts a plant of this scale. The equipment amendment is how they keep that larger number from blowing up before a shovel hits the ground.
Caltech Environmental Construction builds wastewater systems from septic and advanced onsite treatment through package plants, for developers, landowners, and municipalities. The Greenfield vote is a clean example of the question we get on those jobs: what stays on the skid, what comes off, and what has to be left in the budget so the plant, the yard piping, and the site still get finished.
If you are scoping a plant and the equipment quote is already leaning on the rest of the job, the time to resize it is now, in design, with the engineer and the manufacturer in the same conversation. Greenfield just showed what that looks like when it works. About $5 million stayed available for the work still ahead.
Source: Ryan Cronk, “Greenfield cuts nearly $5M from wastewater treatment contract,” Salinas Valley Tribune, September 16, 2026.
Caltech Environmental Construction, Inc., in Rocklin
https://salinasvalleytribune.com/greenfield-cuts-nearly-5m-from-wastewater-treatment-contract/