Green has a price

I attended a meeting this week with our engineers who have been hired to come up with a plan for treating our city's sewage. When the citizens of this state elect people to the state house on the green agenda, the fact is, green doesn't come without a price.

It is very possible we will be looking at a doubling of our sewer bills here soon. And if you have a problem with that, it can go right at the feet of the Iowa Environmental Council and the Sierra Club.

The new environmental rules that those groups lobbied our legislature and DNR to pass really tighten what is acceptable out of Roland's plant.

Some "fun" facts: If our plant discharged into the Missouri or Mississippi Rivers, we wouldn't need a new sewer plant. But because we discharge into Bear Creek, we do because we make up a higher percentage of the total flow.

The new rules say that Bear Creek must be swimmable and fishable. The funny thing is our continuous flow sewer plant actually helps fish in Bear Creek, because we maintain a flow all year round, allowing a habitat for fish. If we have to build a controlled discharge sewer plant, Bear Creek will dry up in the summer, causing a loss of habitat for minnows and such. But for the thousands of people that going swimming and fishing in Bear Creek each year, it will be better. (I was being sarcastic, in case you couldn't figure that out)

It also doesn't matter that animal lot run off can be way more polluting that what we are even doing now. One cow crapping in Bear Creek puts more suspended solids in Bear Creek than what currently comes out of our plant. But we might have to spend more than 1 million dollars to further clean our output.

So, because we have to build a plant that can handle what is going into Roland's sanitary sewer, that is why the city has enacted a sump pump ordinance, and why we will be doing smoke tests to see where storm sewer is entering the sanitary sewer. Because we are obligated to treat rain water, if it enters our sanitary sewer. So if we can cut down that inflow, we can build a smaller plant.

So if you vote green, don't complain when your sewer bill goes up a couple hundred bucks a year to pay for a new sewer plant.

Kermit's take on all this: