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HomeMy Public PortalAboutMinutes_CCSpecialMeeting_09252002WORK MEETING SEPT. 25, 2002 AT 6:30 P.M. AT THE COMMUNITY CENTER PRESENT: Mayor, Craig Rockwood, Council members, Mike Klingler, Dave Huntsman, Scott Long, Clerk, Betty McKinlay, Police Chief, Ross Johnson VISITORS: Kathy Demott, Ted Hendricks, Willy Tuisher, David Smith, David Benton, Dorothy McCarty, Rich Noll, Dan Walters. Mayor Rockwood called the meeting to order. The Council discussed the parking along Main Street and up dating the Water Ordinance. Permits were discussed for homes and sprinkler systems. Ted Hendricks from ECIPDA introduced the Regional Wastewater Steering Committee. Rick Noll showed and discussed the presentation "Regional Wastewater System Facility Planning Study". Shelley Regional WW Facilities Planning Meeting Notes MEMORANDUM TO: COPIES: FROM: Mayor Larry Rockwood/City of Iona Dee Armstrong/Chairman, Iona Bonneville Sewer District Mayor "Swede" Christensen/Regional WW Stec,ing Co nmittee Chairman E-mails Dorothy McCarty/IBSD Manager Willie Teuscher/IDEQ/Idaho Falls Chuck Ketterman/IDEQ/Pocatello Dorothy Bowen/ECIPDA/Rexburg Ted Hendricks/ECIPDA/Rexburg Kathleen T pwis/SICOG/Pocatello Rick Noll/Forsgren/Boise Husk Crowther/Forsgren/Rexburg Hardcopies Betty McKinlay/City of Iona/City Clerk Sandy Gaydusek/Regional Steering Committee Secretary FA Files (BOI/REX/SLC) Dan Walters/Forsgren/Boi PROJECT: 100167 DATE: SUBJECT: November 18, 2002 Shelley Regional Wastewater Facilities Planning Study Sept. 25, 2002 Iona City Council Meeting Meeting Notes Notes: 1. These notes were not reviewed, by the attendees, before distribution. 2. Subsequent correspondence, if any, regarding the notes, are to be appended to the Forsgren project file copies of this n^emorandum. 3. There may minutes for this Council meeting. The minutes may contain additional information of intere, t. The Iona City Council met on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2002 in the Council Chambers at Iona City Hall. This was a working session, as opposed a regularly scheduled counc, meeting. The main purpose of the meting was to allow consultants from the Regional Wastewater Steering Committee (RSC) to make a presentation to the City Council -- to provide an overview of the proposed project and its current status. The presentation started at 7:30 p.m. The presentation, and related discussions, occupied the remainder of the meeting, which adjourned around 9:00 p.m. 092502IonaMeetingNotes Page 1 of 5 Shelley Regional WW Facilities Planning Meeting Notes The attendees were as follow. Iona City Government Regional Steering Committee (RSC) Consultants Mayor Craig Rockwood Ted Hendricks, ECIPDA Betty McKinlay, City Clerk Rick Noll, Forsgren Assoc. Ross Johnson City Police and Maintenance Departments Husk Crowther/Forsgren/Assoc. Dan Walters, Forsgren Assoc. Dave Huntsman, Councilman Scott Long, Councilman Mike Klinger, Councilman Iona Bonneville Sewer District (IBSD) Staff and Consultants Other Attendees Dorothy Benton McCarty IBSD Manager Kathy DeMott, Interested Citizen Dave Benton/Benton Engineering Consulting Engineer to IBSD Willie Teuscher, Project Engineer IDEQ/Idaho Falls Office Dave Smith Sewer Superintendent/City of Idaho Falls Rick walked the group through the Power Point project overview presentation, which had been developed for the series of meeting with community leaders (e.g., Boards, City Councils, etc.) and had been previously presented to the Ammon, Basalt, and Firth City Councils and the IBSD Board. The discussions below occurred during and after the presentation. The Following points were touched on briefly: • Benefits of pre -funding loan reserves • Collection system O&M costs are not in the user rate estimate, which address regional charges — mainly wastewater treatment • If the IBSD needs to incur debt to participate, it would have to hold a bond election. • Revenue bond elections rarely fail if proposed project is sound. • Why centralized collection and treatment, with discharge of a high quality effluent to the river and/or use reuse, was better than dispersed septic systems — the main issue being the concern over contamination of the relatively vulnerable East Snake River Plain aquifer, especially nitrate contamination. Ted explained that the RSC had concurred with the recommendation to use a joint powers agreement (JPA) approach to create the organizational structure of the governing body for the regional system. He indicated that the RSC had consulted bond attorney Michael Moore, who had provided a memorandum outlining the authorities and limitations of the various governing bodies that might and comparing the regional district and JPA approaches. Atty. Moore had also provided a draft JPA document as an example. 092502IonaMeetingNotes Page 2 of 5 Shelley Regional WW Facilities Planning Meeting Notes Ted also explained that the City of Shelley was requested by the RSC to serve as the "cognizant entity" for funding and similar purposes and that the Shelley City Council had agreed. Mayor Rockwood said it seemed that creating a new regional sewer district seemed to be a simple solution to the organizational structure issue. He said it appeared to him that if one of the entities ultimately chose to not participate, this might kill the regional program. Discussion of the difficulties of setting up a regional district followed. Rick noted that one of the largest difficulties was that the IBSD would have to be dissolved for the new regional sewer district to include the area currently served by IBSD. Willie pointed out the RSC members had been clear from the start about wishing to preserve the identity and autonomy of the participating entities. Mayor Ro Akwood, Dave Huntsman, and others expressed deep frustration that the City had not been more involved in the process to date. From their perspective, the RSC had not effectively included them. The mayor acknowledged that the IBSD did not have to have Iona's concurrence to participate in the regional system but indicated that; this was an important matter to the City and directly affected its citizens. Ted and Rick pointed out the ways in which the RSC had sought to keep Iona informed and that the RSC was definitely interested in their input. In response to a question from the Council, Willie recounted how concept of the new regional system had developed. We determined that one of the reasons that Iona was not in the loop for the original public hearing was that the IBSD uses coupon books rather than mailed out bills and the flyers were apparently not distributed. We also discussed that Iona had been represented in RSC meetings prior to Cliff Long's death. Mayor Rockwood indicated that his most recent conversation with Cliff was back around Feb. 2002, at which time Cliff did not believe the project was economically viable. We discussed that the City would probably appoint another representative to replace Cliff. Mayor Rockwood said he had not heard back from the Mayor Christensen, the RSC chairman, when he tried to see about appointing a successor shortly after Cliff's death. Dave Huntsman pointed out that in general, the City has difficulty obtaining information from the IBSD. He used the example of the City's repeated request for an audited statement of the IBSD's operations and/or finances. The Mayor indicated that Idaho Falls has done a good job providing service and that he does not see the benefit to the citizens of participating in the new (Shelley) regional system — point being the existing arrangement works fine with them and does not require a rate increase. He said the rest of the regional concept made sense to him- that it made, since regional service south of Sunnyside. He pointed out the development of the 092502IonaMeetingNotes Page 3 of 5 Shelley Regional WW Facilities Planning Meeting Notes existing Idaho Falls regional wastewater system, including the development of Iona's collection system had been very beneficial to Iona. We discussed the perception, held by so►ne on the Council, that the real reason Ammon and the IBSD had been approached to participate in the new regional system was to make it economically viable — that the real goal was to get at all the revenue generated by the large number of existing users north of Sunnyside and that the project could not go forward if Ammon and IBSD did not participate. Dan pointed out that Ammon and IBSD would contribute about a third of the ERUs (equivalent residential units) out of the 12,600 ERUs estimated at plant start up circa calendar year 2005 to 2006 but that the project might still be economically viable if Ammon and the IBSD did not participate. This was based on: • About half of the total number of ERUs coming from non -domestic sources, particularly from the potato processing plants. [Note: See Tables 11-1 and 18-8 in the revised draft FPS dated 4/024 • Not having to build the expensive interceptor/trunk main froin Sunnyside (near Sand Creek) to the Yellowstone Highway corridor. We discussed that rates will increase regardless: • Idaho Falls is likely to have to expand and upgrade its secondary wastewater treatment processes w;thin the next decade. This is not accounted for in the most recent rate studies, the studies on which Idaho Falls has relied to set its rates to Ammon and the IBSD. • The Busch malting plant expansion and the new Modelo malting plant will take a large bite out of Idaho Fall's reserve treatment capacity. On advantage to Idaho Falls of Ammon and the IBSD moving to the new regional system is recovering reserve capacity, forestalling the need to expand the secondary system due to increased loadings. Dave Smith indicated the IF anticipates having reserve capacity of approximately 6,000 populations equivalents (PEs) after Busch expand and Modelo comes on line. • However, even if the loadings do not increase beyond IF's reserve capacity, the effluent quality requirements are very likely to change, in turn forcing IF to upgrade its secondary treatment system to meet new discharge limits. Nutrients, especially ammonia, are likely to be the driving issue. We discussed the IF's rate studies indicate that IF has not been recovering their full cost of providing service — that this realization was what let to recent rate increases. The upshot of this is that Iona wastewater services have been subsidized in the past. We also discussed the Iona has had the benefit of participating in the older IF regional wastewater system that was financed largely with grant funds rather than loan funds. The upshot of this is that Iona should expect future rate increases to be significant in comparison to their current rates, as loant money cost considerably more than grant money — and grants are a much smaller part of the mix these days. 092502IonaMeetingNotes Page 4 of 5 Shelley Regional WW Facilities Planning Meeting Notes Dave Benton recounted the development of the existing regional system. He pointed out that the system was designed to handle 50,000 population equivalent from the Ammon and IBSD service areas. Dave Benton and Dorothy indicated that today was the first time they had seen the presentation and that their understating was that the IBSD was currently considering whether it wanted to participate. [Note: The IBSD and other members of the RSC all reconfirmed their intent to participate in the regional system in April 2002.1 Action Items: • Dan is to provide Iona with a couple of copies of the FPS. [Note: Shipped to Betty on 9/27/02.1 092502IonaMeetingNotes Page 5 of 5