City Council - Special Meeting

All right, being 515, we'll call the Special Common Council meeting in order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The poll call has been taken, correct. All right. Next on the agenda is adopt the agenda.

So moved to adopt the agenda tonight, Your Honor.

Second. Motion made by Mr. Barrington, second by Mr. Dorsey. Any additions or corrections? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. All right. All appearing for the ordinance amending the future land use map in the city of 24 cities, 2040 comprehensive plan, amending parcels three, three, three, zero, six, nine, zero, zero, zero, and three, three, three, zero, six, nine, one zero zero from single family and duplex residential to mid medium, high density residential as indicated in amendment 2026 dash zero three. Carolyn, you have the map up. And Austin, do you have a presentation?

Yeah, thank you, Your Honor. We'll pull the map up there to kind of give a visual for people to see. But for those of you that tuned into the Planning Commission meeting on May 28, you may recall, this is for the amendment on the northeast side of town to increase the density allowance for poles that we've received for some townhomes. up in that area. So based on the density that was being proposed, the current future land use and zoning for the area didn't support that level of density for the housing that was being proposed. So we are required to change our comprehensive plan first to support the zoning district, which would then support the density of housing that is being proposed here. So we had our public hearing at the Planning Commission meeting on May 28th. From that meeting, the Planning Commission did vote to approve a resolution to the council to have a public hearing, which is being held tonight. So this is the first reading for this proposal. If it goes forward, we would have a second reading at the next council meeting for this. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Any further discussion? All right, hearing none, we will move on to consider approval of ordinance amending the future land use map in the city 2040 comprehensive plan as indicated in amendment 2026-03. First reading.

Oh, actually, public hearing?

Oh, yeah, sorry. All right, we'll open up the floor for public hearing. Any public comment? Public comment? Any public comment? Hearing none, we will close that public hearing. Now we can move on to consider approval of an ordinance amending the future land use map in the city's 2040 comprehensive plan as indicated in the amendment 2026-03 for the first reading.

I'll make that motion, Your Honor, to amend the future land use map as stated.

Second. Second by Mr. Dorsey. Any further discussion? Hearing none, please cast your ballots. That motion's carried 10-0. All right. Presentation of proposed final facility plan for the wastewater treatment plant. Presented by Mr. Gerbitz from Donahue.

You had the floor, sir. Thank you, Mayor. Again, I'm Mike Gerbitz with Donahue and Associates, and this is the public hearing for the wastewater treatment facility improvements. I think this is meeting number five between council meetings and Board of Public Works. This will be the fifth time that we've talked about the issues at the wastewater treatment facility and proposed improvements. Earlier in June at the Board of Public Works meeting, the Board of Public Works accepted the draft facility plan and recommended advancing to this public hearing and council action tonight. And a public hearing is a requirement in our requirement because you're recommending improvements to your wastewater treatment facility, the department requires a public hearing. And so the intention is I'll go through some material and then open the floor for comments and questions. And you all have endured some pretty lengthy presentations in the past that I think are available online, said through 45 minutes to an hour in the past. I've got some material here and I'll try and go through it because you all have been, you know, So while briefed in the past, a little bit with a bit more brevity than I have in the past, but certainly willing to entertain any questions that come from before from the elected officials. So why is action needed now? Why are we here tonight? To remind everybody, there's really four issues that bring us here tonight. convergence of four really separate issues. First and foremost is a compliance issue. You have tightening regulations. Your permit will require you, your discharge permit, the wastewater treatment facility has a WPDS permit. It's regulated by the DNR. That has a phosphorus limit today. That phosphorus limit is going to get ratcheted down pretty significantly because of what we've talked in the past, a TMDL. And your existing facility is incapable of achieving compliance, consistent compliance with that phosphorus limit. You need to be in compliance by 2031, July of 2031, and we'll look at a schedule in a bit. That puts you in a position to start making progress towards the improvements required to achieve compliance now. You need to start making progress, steady progress now. So that's first and foremost why we're here tonight at this particular point in time. However, there are three other issues that need to be addressed at that facility or now since you're making improvements to the treatment facility, now's the time to address these other issues. Three issues, and that's one is the condition of the facility. It's an aging facility. Most of your infrastructure is 40 to 70 years old today. When we put a plan like this together, the department EPA requires a community to plan for a 20 year horizon, plan a generation at a time. So that facility at the end of that planning horizon, most of it would be 60 to 90 years old. And it's becoming increasingly expensive and challenging to maintain that aging facility and that aging infrastructure. We've talked at length about the obsolescence and complexity aspect. Facility was designed for a different era. It uses old technology, fixed film, liquid train treatment, rock trickling filter, a plastic media, bio tower, both of those are fixed film processes that really aren't used in facilities today unless there's a heavy food processing load, a heavy organic load from a local industry. Okay, that service, your service area doesn't have that type of load and it's not anticipated to ever have that type of load again. So it's a very complex facility, one of the most complex in the state, using older technology that was really well conceived for a service area that doesn't exist today and is not anticipated to exist again. And then finally, it's that technology, that old technology, the fixed film process, is really counterproductive to this new era of nutrient limits that we're in. Biological phosphorus removal and, in the future, total nitrogen removal biologically really aren't possible because of the fixed film process. So it's an obsolete and complex facility. And then, of course, something else that we've talked a lot about, it lacks flexibility. It lacks the ability to produce a Class A bioproduct. It relies on Class B. It produces Class B biosolids that are very dilute. And it doesn't have the ability to readily comply with a future total nitrogen limit, which people expect someday. It's not a matter of if the facility will get a total nitrogen limit. It's a matter of when it will get such a limit. You're already, the DNR is all, just to remind you guys, DNR is already recommending you sample in your effluent the full suite of nitrogen compounds that is always a, a prelude or it's foreshadowing what the department's going to do in the future. They're gathering information so that they're well positioned, well informed to give you a total nitrogen future. So we're here tonight first and foremost because of the phosphorus issue. You have a compliance schedule. You need to be in compliance by July 2031. But before you make another investment in that existing facility, it's time to consider issues two, three, and four. So the fundamental question isn't whether the community needs to make an investment in its treatment facility. Really, the question is whether or not it should continue to invest or reinvest in the facility that's designed for the past or replace it. It's now the time to replace it with infrastructure that's designed not only for this generation, but future generation. Schedule is important. I mentioned that before. A lot of work has already been done. In 2022, you received this WPDS permit that has a compliance schedule that's telling you by July of 2031, you're going to need to be in compliance with this new low-level phosphorus limit. In 2024 and into 2025, you wrote the preliminary compliance alternatives plan. A couple of presentations were given to the Board of Public Works at that time. You authorized the next step. The facility planning and the final compliance alternatives plan, that's been done since 2025, later in 2025 until today. But the really important timing aspect is by September 30th of this year, September 30th of this year, you need to submit reviewable plans and specs for whatever improvements you want to make at that facility and and fund with the Wisconsin Clean Water Fund so that you can secure your $3.1 million in principal forgiveness. That's like a grant. You have to submit reviewable plans and specs to get $3.1 million of principal forgiveness from the Wisconsin Clean Water Fund. Then after that, we'd complete the design. and we would bid the project in the spring of 2027. And that would give you ample time for your contractor to build the proposed improvements before you need to be in compliance by July of 2031. That timing is important because the principal forgiveness program is going to drastically change after state fiscal year 2027. If you miss that September 30th window, there is a chance. Well, I think we can say with a lot of certainty, you won't get $3.1 million and there's a chance you'd get zero because the amount of principal forgiveness that's available is going to drastically get ratcheted down. Okay. So that's why we're here tonight and we want to keep this process moving. There's grant money at stake. What's a facility plan? DNR requires it, EPA requires it. At a time like this when you're proposing improvements or you're contemplating improvements and ultimately recommending a path forward, the facility plan documents that evaluation, documents the recommendation, defines any environmental impacts, and It's a requirement of the Clean Water Fund, which you intend to use to fund your improvements. In effect, a facility plans your 20-year roadmap for the future of the wastewater system. And this public hearing is one of the requirements of that facility plan. We looked at seven different alternatives. We've talked about all of those here in the past. Four of those alternatives were really One of the alternatives was do nothing. You always have to include the do nothing alternative. You can see that that just doesn't address any of the four issues that the facility is facing. You won't maintain compliance. It's not a feasible alternative. The other three alternatives, two, three, and four, were aimed exclusively at the phosphorus issue. And so that's why the one box is checked for those different alternatives. Alternative two, and we've talked about these at length in the past, and my intention isn't to spend much time on it, but the multi-discharger variance is you pay your way to compliance for just a period of time. So that would give you a way to comply with your phosphorus limit until only 2035, and all the money that you spend on the MDV is gone forever. You're just buying annual compliance. Alternative three was either adaptive management or a trade with a bunch of non-point landowners or agricultural operations. All the money that you spend on that would be gone forever. None of those alternatives are realistic long-term strategies for compliance and not well conceived for where you are in the watershed and the size of your facility. Alternative four would simply add filtration to your existing facility, would make no other improvements at your existing plant, would just add effluent pumping and filtration. And that alternative would give you a long-term phosphorus compliance strategy, but it wouldn't address any of the other issues at the facility. Condition, complexity, liquid train issue, future phosphorus, or excuse me, future nitrogen limits, solids train flexibility. And then we talked before, any work within the existing facility is going to be a relatively risky proposition. We have to keep that facility operating. There isn't much room there. And so your potential for change orders and the unexpected is far greater with alternative four. Staff and elected officials have said none of those four alternatives are right for us. So we focus spent the majority of the time talking about alternatives, investments that would address the lion's share or all of the issues there at the facility. Alternative number five would be a comprehensive upgrade to your existing facility that would replace aging equipment, rehabilitate aging structures, and add filtration, and that's the blue box, add filtration to meet future phosphorus levels. What we're showing in this graphic is a schematic of your facility. You can see how complicated it is. I'll repeat again, this is one of the most complicated facilities in the state. We would make it more complicated by adding filtration and effluent pumping before disinfection. So to achieve phosphorus compliance, but it would increase the complexity of this complex facility. It would retain all your existing infrastructure. It would retain all your existing unit processes that are inefficient to operate and hinder your ability to operate cost-effectively in this new era of nutrient removal. And you would continue to produce Class B biosolids, dilute Class B biosolids. We've talked at length about the logistical challenges and the cost challenges, and frankly, the potential that that's no longer either a feasible or allowable practice moving forward in the future.

And Mike, the efficiency of this design pumping four times.

Yes.

You want to address that a little bit?

Yeah. So I don't know of another facility that pumps, let's see, maybe one, two, three. Manitowoc pumps their wastewater three times, but there's a lot of treatment facilities in the state. I only know of Manitowoc that has to pump it three times. Conceivably, you'd have to pump it. We'd add a fourth pumping station and we'd pump it again. That's very inefficient. You remove phosphorus by adding chemicals. A more efficient process, which we're going to talk about in subsequent slides, a more efficient process would use the wastewater characteristics to remove a great deal of phosphorus biologically without chemical addition. Here, you have to rely completely on chemical phosphorus removal. And then if you had to meet a nitrogen limit in the future, you would have to add even more chemicals. So it's energy inefficient. It's chemically inefficient. It's old. It's complicated. And you would be preserving all of that for another generation and probably beyond because you were about to make a big investment and you want to walk away from that investment. So if we kind of summarize things, alternative five, it's a phosphorus compliance strategy. It would address a lot of the aging equipment. It has the most favorable capital cost.

That's not the total economic picture.

We'll look at that in a little while. But it does have a more favorable capital cost. But its disadvantages are pretty significant and pervasive throughout the facility. You obtain that kind of that obsolete complexity designed for a different era that's not coming back. You don't have the ability to meet a future nitrogen limit. You're stuck with Class B or you're making a large investment in Class B liquid biosolids. And you're forced to construct this facility while maintaining and doing a lot of work at your existing facility, while you continue to use it and achieve compliance, there's a great potential for surprises along the way and unexpected costs. Alternative six would abandon or effectively abandon the existing facility and build a brand new facility west of the Public Works building in the Sledding Hill area. You construct a new modern streamlined facility, well designed for phosphorus compliance, well designed for a future nitrogen limit. But in this alternative with alternative six, you would continue to produce class B biosolids and and dispose of those as a regulated class B product. What we're showing on the screen right now, whether shown in the dark lines, those would be new structures constructed west of the public works building. Really the only infrastructure that you would continue to use is up here at the top, top right hand side of this graphic. That's your existing pumping station. You would continue to use that pumping station. We'd recondition it. for another generation of service, but you would retain the use of that existing infrastructure. Everything else associated with the facility would be new. This is a schematic of that facility. You'd have a raw wastewater pumping, so you'd pump it one time. You'd have screening to remove debris, grit removal to remove sand and gravel that comes down the interceptor. You'd have a BNR selector. So this is where biological phosphorus removal happens and where in the future nitrogen removal would happen. You'd have an oxidation ditch, a well-proven activated sludge facility or activated sludge process that's used throughout the country. There's a lot of oxidation ditch facilities here in Wisconsin. It's a well-proven stable process selection, secondary clarifiers. You would filter it for phosphorus compliance and then disinfect it using UV disinfection. Biosolids is as simple as it gets. You would store the residual solids the liquid train produces. You would thicken those up. You would store them for 180 to 360 days before hauling them out to the fields. One thing to point out is with this process, you would continue to have a highly regulated Class B land application program, and you would have to, you could only land apply those by injecting those solids or incorporating them, having them disked in within a couple hours of land application. Very simple process, but it does restrict your land application program. It'd be heavily regulated like it is today. But that alternative is a fundamental shift in how you're treating the water. You would be converting from a fixed film process to an activated sludge process. And it would be reasonable for anybody to ask, well, is that done very often? We're showing some examples here where a lot of your peers around the state, when they were faced with making another significant capital improvement, intended for multiple generations have made the same decision to abandon their fixed film process. And I've got some listed here around the state. A lot of facilities made this conversion a long time ago. Trickling filters were popular in the 50s and 60s. This is what I'm showing here are some in the last 20 years or so around the state that have converted from a fixed film process to activated sludge. Alternative fix really checks all the boxes except two. It addresses compliance and condition, obsolescence, complexity of a much simpler plant. It's able to handle a future nitrogen limit. It's a much cleaner construction project. What it doesn't offer is solids-trained flexibility. It would continue to produce a Class B biosolids product. Remind everybody, Class B is what you have today. It's heavily regulated. And DNR restricts the fields that can be applied on. They regulate the application rates that can be applied on. They regulate the soil types that can be applied on. And so all those logistical challenges that are getting increasingly challenging would continue into the future. It's also more expensive than the previous alternative from a capital cost standpoint. It is more efficient from an annual operating cost standpoint. Again, we'll look at the total cost picture in a minute. Alternative seven, and this is, I think, this is what the Board of Public Works recommended moving forward with to tonight was alternative seven. The liquid train for alternative seven is the same as the one that I talked about previously for alternative six, and the only difference is on the solids train. Here, instead of producing a liquid class B product, you'll produce a class A and a class A EQ, exceptional quality biosolids product that's like, like Milorganite. Okay. Becomes an unregulated fertilizer. DNR does not regulate where that can be applied. Most people that have a class that produce a class A product have landowners that just come out to the facility, take it back to their, agricultural operation and use it. In some instances, they'll even pay a little bit for that. So instead of becoming a revenue consuming or a revenue or a cost to your operation, it becomes a revenue producer. Nothing else, the cost of land application, we would expect that to just go to zero. There's a chance it could produce a little bit of revenue. This is showing a schematic of that alternative. The liquid train is the same. Screen it, pump it, excuse me, screen it, remove the grit. BNR selector for nutrient removal, oxidation ditch, secondary clarifier filtration, UV disinfection. A very simple, much simpler, much more efficient system, liquid train system than you have today. Biosolids. The residuals that the liquid treatment process produces go into temporary waste storage. We would dewater it. We'd squeeze the water out of those solids so that instead of being 95, well, 97% water, it becomes about 80% water. We squeeze as much water as we can out of it. And then we put it into a heat dryer where it goes into an oven, if you will. and the water is evaporated off and you're left with about a 95 or more percent solid product, excuse me, the water content goes down to about 5% or less. It becomes, we create a pellet and then that pellet would be stored temporarily until the landowner, cultural landowner comes and takes it back to their facility. The point is, You have a lot less material to deal with and it's no longer, once you produce a classic product, it's no longer regulated. Landowners can take it just like you do Milorganite and do what they want with it. One would ask, well, is anybody else doing this drying operation? And there's been a huge There's a lot of other facilities that are facing the same challenges that you're facing, have gone through very similar analyses, and have come to the same conclusion that Class A is the right investment for the long haul, for the long term. And I've got listed here some facilities that are currently operating, building, designing, or planning a biosolids dryer. And I don't mean kind of passively, they're kind of interested, but they are actively pursuing a dryer. And so, again, you can see a lot of your peers around the state gone through the same analysis and decided that drying is their right next investment for the biosolids program. And this particular alternative, from a non-economic standpoint, it checks all the boxes, okay? She used phosphorus compliance. Got a brand new facility that addresses the age of your existing equipment infrastructure. It's simpler. It's more efficient. It's more designed for the modern age. So it addresses that obsolescence of complexity. It gives you the ability to meet a future nitrogen limit without any more capital cost. It's inherently in the design. It gives you the solid strain flexibility to produce an unregulated class A fertilizer pellet. It's a much cleaner construction project than anything, any significant work on your existing facility because it's an entirely new facility. Contractor can continue to run your old plant while your contractor builds your new one adjacent to it. And when it's ready for commissioning, you just switch over. Much simpler construction. The operating costs are superior. This is, however, from a capital cost standpoint, the most expensive of the three alternatives. But if we focus exclusively on those non-economic comparisons or the non-economic evaluation, we'll look at economics in a minute. Alternative 7 checks all the boxes, as I said before. And here you can see how 7 compares with 6 and 5. The cost, we talked about these last time. The construction cost for the three different alternatives is shown on the top. Total project cost. is shown on the next line. The O&M costs are shown here. And you can see that alternative seven is expected to be about 30%, about 30% less to operate than an overhauled alternative five, an overhaul of your existing facility. What the DNR really focuses on at a time like this, because they've realized this is a long-term investment, they look at the 20-year total present worth, which factors in the value of your investment at the end of that 20-year planning period. It factors in the cost to operate the facility. And the total present worth is really remarkably close between these three different alternatives. In fact, the department says if your total present worth cost, if your 20-year cost is within 10%. They're all the same. And the community can pick the alternative that they feel is in their best interest. And the last time we talked about this in early June, the Board of Public Works felt like Alternative 7, considering all the different factors, I went through it much more quickly tonight, but considering all the different factors and all that we've talked about for the last year, Alternative 7 was the right strategy. And one thing to look at is the salvage value. Salvage value is really like how much value is left in our facility at the end of that 20-year planning period. At the end of the 20-year planning period, instead of most of your facility being 60 to 90 years old, it's 20 years old. And it's well-configured for this modern age that we live in from a regulatory standpoint and a service standpoint. After we talked last time, alternative seven was the preferred alternative considering economics and non-economics. What I want to point out is I think one reason why the Board of Public Works felt this way is they realized it's also a hedge against future projects and future capital spending. Alternative seven guards against other projects that could be quite expensive. So if we look at Alternative 5, it does nothing to address Class A, does nothing to address a future total nitrogen limit. This is showing those blue boxes at the bottom are the capital costs of this project, but purple and green represent future costs to address either a Class A requirement or a total Nitrogen limit. And so from a long-term perspective, looking down the road at what future capital costs might be coming at you, alternative seven is that one and done alternative. You've already addressed total nitrogen. You've already addressed class A. So Alternative 7 reduces operating costs and prepares for the long term by minimizing the likelihood that future rate payers will need to revisit the same challenges again. And it's with that in mind that Alternative 7 was recommended. What do the rates look like? This is an expensive project. What do the rates look like? This is a slide that we talked about last time. As we sit here today, the rates in 2026, a typical residential rate payer today is paying about $54 a month. And you can see how those rates would get ratcheted up in 2027, 2028, 29, and 30 for each of these three alternatives that address the lion's share of the issues, or in the case of Alternative 7, all the issues. So rates per alternative seven would go from roughly $54 a month to $109. In the city, I say roughly because we're a wastewater form, we do these types of analyses, we're pretty good at it, but you really need to work with your rate consultant that will also look at the health and wellbeing of your utility today, and they'll be the ones that establish those rates in the end. But this is, I think, a very representative decision-making perspective here. One reason we can ratchet up those rates in this way is because you won't have to make your first principal and interest payment until May after substantial completion. And that gives us all this runway to ratchet in this rate increase. We don't have to do it tonight. We don't have to do it next year. We can do it incrementally, 27, 8, 9, and 20, 30, before you need to make that first principal and interest payment in June. The purpose tonight isn't to talk about the different funding strategies, but I want to assure everybody we looked at rural development, we looked at selling bonds, and then we looked at the Clean Water Fund. And for a community like New London, a project like this, you can carry a 30-year Clean Water Fund loan, your interest rate would be 1.485%. It's a sub clean water fund is a federally subsidized program. And the interest rate is far more attractive than really any of the other funding strategies that are out there. This is a lot of money. Um, but I want to point out that there's, this is, this is the modern age of wastewater treatment and this regulatory climate with these construction costs, construction costs are going up faster than inflation. And so some of your other peers have been faced with a similar situation where the right long-term investment results in a typical residential rate in the vicinity of $100 a month, in some cases exceeding $100 a month. And I've listed some of those there. London's not alone. And it's just kind of the way the world works today. If somebody has really low, if the community has really low rates, it just means they haven't done a big capital project in some time. And so they're on borrowed time. And so a community will do a major project. The rates go up towards the upper end of the scale. But over time, they slide back down and people leapfrog above them. And it's just kind of the revolving treadmill of user rates today. So what are the next steps to proceed according to plan here with alternative seven? We'll open the floor for any comments or questions of course, but if the community decides that alternative seven is the right strategy, then the council needs to approve the facility plan recommendation alternative seven and authorize final design so that we can hit, that fast approaching end of September deadline to submit reviewable plans and specs to the DNR. We'll submit the facility plan with the public record, excuse me, documentation of this public hearing. We'll get to work on your clean water fund application. And then I want to again state that in this day and age, I think every community is wise to work with their elected officials to try and get some federal support. Okay, that's back in vogue and all of your peers are doing it and we recommend, and I think, and I know you guys, the mayor and Chad, I believe you guys have already started that and we want to support that process. I think we could be helpful, but it works best. It's far more productive and successful if the community takes the lead and your community leaders have already started that process and we want to support that. So, I guess at this point, I'll open it up for any questions and comments. I guess one of my final thoughts is the decision isn't $100 a month versus zero. It's not a large investment versus zero. No matter what, where you're sitting with the facility that you have, the condition that it's in, the nature of it, the way it's configured, and this compliance schedule, No matter what, the community has a pretty significant investment. And the real decision, I think, is it worth that incremental investment to make that kind of that long-term visionary multi-generational investment rather than the cheapest one today that faces a pretty significant risk of facing some other capital costs in the future. It's $109 a month versus $88, not $109 a month versus $0. It's really the incremental costs that we should be considering here tonight. That's my recommendation to you. So I will answer any questions anybody has.

Do these estimates, do they include decommissioning and dismantling the existing?

They do not. Now that, we would recommend you not include that in the bid package at this point. I think Robert If Robert was here, he could speak to that. Reedsburg recently did that, and they decommissioned their facility and just kind of turned it into a grass field. That cost about a million dollars. So it's not a huge future cost. It's more than zero. I'm not downplaying that, but I do want to be clear that the community would be best served. by making that a future project and allowing bidders that are interested in that type of work bidding specifically on that. I think that's in the city's best interest.

And then with that option number seven, is there any additional like smell with squeezing and drying?

That's a good question. There would be odor control that's included in the project that there's the potential or a different type of smell. Wastewater treatment facilities have an odor. Your existing one does. This would have the potential for a different type of odor. Odor control is included in this to address those solids-related, drying-related odors.

So, I mean, between option six and seven, is there a significant difference in the smell?

Yeah, seven will be less. Six, you're putting, this is kind of a technical thing, but you're taking the solids out of your liquid train and putting them right into storage. And when it's time to mix those solids, we would expect those to have a higher odor potential in the spring or the fall of the year. I would say seven has a lower odor potential than six. And your staff, they've visited some drying facilities and they can speak to this too. There's other people that have these out there and they can confirm that.

Is this new facility taking future population growth? I mean, is it going to have the capacity for future population growth?

Absolutely. That's a fundamental requirement of DNR is to look at population projections. And absolutely, you have to invest for 20 years and beyond. Yes, sir.

Do we know what it costs per year to haul and dispose of our waste now?

Currently, we're budgeting about $250,000 annually to get rid of it. It used to be significantly less, but because we have to haul it so far now and it doesn't separate that well, that's why we had to increase it that much.

And that's, and I showed before kind of the life cycle costs that was all factored in there. It was part of the math that was captured in that table.

If everybody is starting to go toward this type of stuff, is there still a good potential to get rid of it and make some money at it or is Because so many places are going to this, is it going to be harder to get rid of that stuff in the future?

Yeah, that's a good question. I think the demand far exceeds the supply. I think if every facility in the state produced a Class A product, that there would be agricultural operations that would want those nutrients for a very low cost. You know, there are a lot of studies and a lot of Landowners view Class A biosolids as more valuable fertilizer than the typical agricultural fertilizers because you get all that carbon in the biosolids and that enhances the soil characteristics. You get all that carbon and it helps moisture retention. And so I think it's highly desirable and I'm not at all concerned and we're not seeing any evidence that if drying was widespread or more widespread, excuse me, throughout the state than it is that, you know, there wouldn't be a market for this stuff. Landowners are gonna want this. That's been our experience.

I think one thing that the public has to understand is we're not talking $108 per month.

Absolutely.

So no matter what is done, grand scheme picture, you're talking about $21.

Yes.

Very social.

Absolutely.

Well, it goes beyond $21 a month. It's $21 a month to do it all now versus $88 a month and have to do more later. That's going to cost more money. So we would probably look at that considerably.

Yep. That was the point of that graph where we showed the purple and the green, that you aren't addressing all the issues, $80 to $8 a month, and you still are in a position where all of a sudden you have a nitrogen limit, you're back, and that will be a very expensive problem. That will be risky construction on your existing facility. If you have to put in a dryer in the future, that's another cost. So you're exactly... I'm agreeing with you that that is not something to lose sight of.

And that cost will be higher in the future. Pardon? And that cost will be higher in the future.

Yes. Yeah. All of this will never be cheaper than it is today. Construction costs last year went up for a project like this, 6%. Okay. Construction costs are going up more rapidly than inflation.

So basically we're going to be borrowing money for 30 years, right? 20 years?

30 years? Yeah, what we've talked about in the past with staff and here is you could do 20 or 30, but to help out the rate payers, and given the amount, the large amount, so not every project can be, can use a 30-year loan time, but you can because you're building so much infrastructure that I think the staff and In previous conversations, I think everybody felt, let's make it as easy on the rate payers as we can. And our interest rate's less than 1.5%, as we see here today. And there's a lot of life in this project. And it's just like a home mortgage, right? There's a lot of life left at the end of that 30 years.

And then after the 30 years, it'll come back down, right? Yeah. or the next round of investments that you need to not, not putting money aside. The DNR is requiring us to put money aside.

That's a really important point. And it's something that I hated the time like this, but DNR, the clean water fund program, excuse me, is going to require you to put in a lot of money annually into an account for the purposes of maintaining this investment. We game plan that that's going to be on the order of for alternative seven, $700,000 a year will go into this account that's considered in your rate, the rate analysis. $700,000 a year will be stuffed in an account for ongoing maintenance of your facility.

So by the end of this 30 years, we'll have $21 million for future projects.

It stings a little bit today, but less each year, and then communities are always glad they've got that.

Number seven, I know you can't predict the future, nobody can predict the future, but say if we got a big milk plant back in town like we used to have Borden's, would that plant handle it?

No, not like if a cheese factory came to town and they just wanted to send you stuff right from the factory like they did in the past. What I think would be what could happen, though, is you say, look, we've got flow capacity for you, but you probably would require them to put in pretreatment. Let them deal with their heavy load. You really don't want to ask the people that are here today to pay any more for what might happen for an industrial user. You don't want to subsidize what might happen to future industry. So this is the way it's usually dealt with. We hope a wet industry comes to town, but you put that requirement on the industry. You make it their responsibility to deal with their heavy load, and then you get from them at the back end of their pretreatment system you get domestic strength waste.

A lot of big operations run their own wastewater anyway.

Yeah. Like Tyson Foods, they have their own. Yep, right. AgriPure on the north side of Appleton, they built a beautiful facility. They still discharge to one of our clients, Heart of the Valley. but they provide that pretreatment. And that didn't preclude them from coming to the heart of the valley servicing. I think that that's the new era. Rather than have communities subsidize these operations, have them provide treatment and give you domestic strength waste.

Any further questions? All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Very nice presentation. Thank you all for your questions. And hearing that, we will move on to the public hearing. So with that portion, I will now call the public hearing for proposal final facility plan for wastewater treatment plant and recommended alternative design seven as open. Any public comment? Public comment? Would you please stand up to the mic, state your name, your address, and please keep it to three minutes or under.

Jeremy Roberts, 1411 South Pearl Street. First off, I just want to say thanks to all the committee members. I've been watching the Public Works committee meetings regarding the treatment plan, and I think there's been a lot of thought put into this process to replace the treatment plan. It is expensive, but that's what we're dealing with. I guess just a couple of quick questions that I had was mainly relating to the rates. After the graph you showed went to 2030, it was about $109 a month for the average user. After that, is it anticipated that the rate would generally stay flat? I mean, other than normal cost increases, or is there going to be additional rate increases in the future?

Normally, public comment is meant for public comment questions. We can address some questions later. If there are short answers, you're the only one in the audience today? I mean, we can go ahead and address those questions currently.

Yeah, no, that's fine.

If you want to answer that on the fly, that's...

I'd be happy to. So we wanted to capture the cost to handle the debt service with that clean water fund. So after that, we would expect the cost to... kind of fall back in line with the types of rate increases that you've had to just adjust for wages and inflation and the cost of chemicals, electricity, and things like that, the consumables that continue to go up over time. But you're done paying that, you're done increasing rates to provide the revenue required to pay the debt.

Okay. No. Thank you. Well, thank you for your questions and comments. Any further public comment? Any further public comment? Last call for public comment. Hearing none, we will close the public hearing and move on to consider approval of final facility plan for the wastewater treatment plant and alternative design seven. We're looking for a motion.

for approval of final facility plan and wastewater treatment plan .

Motion's been made by Mr. Hess. Seconded by Ms. Croy. Any further discussion? All right, hearing none, please cast your ballots. That motion's carried 10-0. Moving on to consider Approval for agreement with Donahue and Associates for final facility design of wastewater treatment plant and the alternative design seven. Looking for a motion and a second. So moved. Motion made by Mr. Dorsey. Seconded. Seconded by Mr. Ritchie. Any further discussion? Hearing none, please cast your ballots. That motion is carried 10-0 as well. Last item on the agenda is for adjournment. Motion to adjourn. Motion made by Mr. Roberts. Second by Mr. Barrington. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried by all. We are adjourned.