Preston City wastewater treatment plant needs to be upgraded and the mayor and city council are trying to figure out how to pay for it.
PRESTON – The Mayor and City Council of Preston went to work to solve the price discrepancy they faced with Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the huge price tag of replacing their antiquated wastewater treatment plant.
Preston Mayor Dan Keller said he has spent a lot of time calling different agencies in Boise trying to get someone to work with Preston City. Then he met with the big guns.
“We got what we asked for after we had a confab in Boise,” Keller said. “We met in the senate caucus chambers and we had representatives from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, EPA, both the state and Federal legislators.”
The city is in the fourth year of a seven-year deadline for what they thought was going to be a $30 million wastewater improvement project. The city council got two bids back and the one was for near $60 million and another for $75 million.
Initially, the city had their bids in the $30 million range but after inflation, supply chain and other issues the bids grew to almost double in size.
The mayor told the group of state and federal officials $34 million was the city’s limit and they wouldn’t ask their residents for any more money.
“The director of the USDA said they might have a package and would try to get it put together by November.”
The USDA went back to Washington, D.C. and asked Preston to have their low bidder to hold off until the week of Christmas. USDA came back offering a $10.3 million grant for the city.
“We are not going to indebt the citizens any more than we have to,” the mayor said. “After meeting with everyone we got what we wanted.
“Construction on the project will commence this spring and the city doesn’t have to pay the wastewater improvements bill until it is finished in 2026.”
The bottom line is the $70 million project will cost the taxpayers 52 percent and the Feds will kick in 48 percent.
“When Brandon Woolf, the DEQ secretary, came to a recent Preston City council meeting and told the mayor and city council that the mayor got what he asked for, he got the help the city needed.”
Apparently, the phosphate emissions that come from their wastewater treatment plant exceeds DEQ requirements, so the city was mandated to reduce that phosphate emissions. The current wastewater treatment plant was built some time ago and the city has experienced significant growth since then.
The sewer and water systems is in need of a major overhaul, according to city officials and a utility rate increase was inevitable.
“We have been telling residents it is going to be a $34 million project and cost the residents $30 to $40 increase a month,” Keller said. “If we would not have had the negotiations with the state and federal officials, our residents were going to have to pay $111 a month for sewer and with the water residents would be $150 a month for the next 40 years.”
Preston is currently on the lower tier in the state for utility costs.
The city engineers have designed the treatment system that uses new technology, and it has been approved by DEQ.
“We did our due diligence in selecting the engineering firm and the contractors,” the mayor said. “I think we did the citizens of Preston a good job putting wastewater treatment plans together.”