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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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