May 10 Council meeting

Not many topics on the agenda tonite, but it took a long time. We had a presentation from MIDAS, which is a group that helps out with grants and such. We got some info on potential grants.

Next we had a presentation about our choices on sewer upgrades. If you have been a reader of this blog, you know that Roland needs to upgrade its sewer plant. So we had an engineering firm come up with options, and potential costs. None of our options look very good from a cost perspective.

However, the problem is, regulations from the EPA and DNR are always in a state of flux, and potentially could tighten. So what the council has to decide, is basically coming up with something that is going to serve the community for 20 years or so. We have some cheaper options, but it is possible that 5-10 years from now, that option will not meet the new wastewater guidelines. But we might be ok. So the decision to make is, do we spend 3.5 million bucks on something that might tide us over, but might not, or spend 4-5 million on something that will likely tide us over.

Those numbers are not exact. But ballpark. Here are the options that we have....1. Build a mechanical plant. It is the most expensive up front, and the most expensive to operate. But we would control its operation, and it would likely be able to meet, or easily be modified to meet all regulations over the next 20 years.

#2 is the cheapest to build, and the cheapest to operate, and that is an expanded lagoon system that can hold either 180 or 240 days of our treated sewage, which we would then release at certain times of the year. The downside is we would need about 80 acres of land, and it is the least likely to meet future standards, if they are tightened.

#3 is to work some arrangement with Story City to treat our sewage. It is midrange on the cost. The advantage is we don't have to maintain a mechanical plant. The disadvantage is we give up control of our sewer system. We would also have to pay for some amount of upgrades in Story City. Story City gets some advantage in that for not much added cost to them, they would get more revenue from us, to help operate their plant.

Costs will vary somewhat, but when this all goes down, expect to see your sewer rates to go up by $50 a month.

We are going to amend our permit application in the near term, to show we are working on this. So no decision is going to be made in the near term. We are also still working on cutting down our inflow, via leaky pipes, and sump pumps, and all that. If we can cut that down, we can cut down the size of a future sewer plant, which will lessen the construction cost.

We also had a work session on streets, and coming up with a 5 year plan. No done deal there, but we did direct our Streets Superintendent Harold to work with the city engineer to get costs for the completion of Bryan Ave to Industrial, and a street from Bryan to Arthur Drive, through the new park area. Other than that, no major road construction will take place for now, and repairs will be of the seal coat variety.