Wastewater treatment plants are probably the most expensive items a city deals with. These involve a great deal of equipment and structures to effectively treat wastewater to meet the stringent requirements of Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. These requirements keep our receiving waters clean.
Outside of debt service the next largest funding source are SAC funds. SAC is short for Sewer Availability Charge. The city uses a system of determining the residential equivalent(s) for each intended use of the sewer system. One household is considered a residential equivalent. Presently the SAC change for a residential equivalent in Becker is set at $4000. This fee is paid at the time a building permit is issued and represents the new homeowners share of the costs for a wastewater treatment facility. $835,000 of SAC funds were used to reduce the amount of debt needed in building the present facility. SAC funds will also be used on an annual basis to write down the levy requirements on the bonds sold to finance the facility.
Other funds were used to lower the bond (loan) amount. Unspent construction funds on an earlier wastewater project were used to provide $243,000 of the project costs. $75,000 of sewer use funds were used. The project provided for the elimination of a lift station and as such some trunk funds were used in the amount of $365,000. A portion of the project involved upgrades of the industrial sewer portion of the plant. The industrial portion of the project upgrade was estimated to cost $1,282,871. Industrial user fees to cover the cost of capital were used to cover this cost. Two other funding sources were taped for an additional $1,000,000. These funds were set aside for future needs.
The remaining costs were bonded for. As we set out to accomplish the project we were faced with the question of tertiary treatment. This is a final cleanup of wastewater to bring the discharge pollutants to a very low level. Making the choice to move ahead with this was a responsible choice for the environment but added about $1.7 million in additional costs. These costs were not initially bonded for so additional debt service will be accomplished with a bond sale on January 15th. The good news with this is the annual debt service was anticipated and already part of the city levy.
Overall the wastewater treatment facility will serve approximately 3500 residential equivalents of users. Additional expansion to the plant has not been anticipated until 2020, so we will be set for many years to come. With an overall cost of roughly $14.7 million dollars we can’t afford these types of improvements too often.
