Several of Forest Lake’s 45 sewer lift stations are housed in “tin cans,” steel casings that were once coated in tar and are now in need of replacement.
The Forest Lake City Council will soon have to make a decision about the funding of needed renovations to the city’s sewers and lift stations, but council members are faced with questions about the method of payment and how quickly it should make repairs.
Forest Lake is a unique city when it comes to its sanitary sewer system. Due to the system’s proximity to multiple lakes and the cost philosophy on sewer construction when the area’s infrastructure was being developed in the 1950s and 1960s, the city has 45 lift stations, with a 46th going on line this summer.
Lift stations are pumping stations that lift sewage further up underground so it can flow downhill again for as long as possible. In 2014, Forest Lake’s then Public Works Director Mike Tate told The Forest Lake Times that most cities of Forest Lake’s size are responsible for far fewer stations, often as few as five to eight. Though many of the city’s newer lift stations are encased in concrete, which has a longer lifespan, several of its oldest lift stations are encased in what city staff colloquially refer to as “tin cans” – steel casings that were once coated in tar. Now, the tar is gone, and the steel is rusting away. If a lift station breaks, it can lead to sewage backing up in the system, a potentially costly problem for both the city and sewer users.
Besides the replacement of the “tin can” casing with concrete, several of the lift stations need other work, including generator hookups and electrical replacements. The city also sees a need to perform maintenance on other parts of its sewer system, like a lining program that will preserve old pipes that could have sprung a leak. The city has been discussing ramping up work on the sewer and lift station maintenance and repair for the last few years; at the City Council’s Feb. 17 work session, City Engineer Ryan Goodman gave a presentation on the work needed, and council members discussed the pace of the work and how to keep costs most affordable for residents.
The discussion was part of a larger conversation about proposed changes to various city fees. City staff has recommended to the council that the city repair its lift stations with a “pay-as-you-go” method, funding the maintenance out of its sanitary sewer fund as costs come up instead of bonding for the costs, but the fund will likely require annual rate increases of 5 percent just to keep up with increased charges to the city by the Metropolitan Council in exchange for Forest Lake’s connection to its wastewater system. Those costs, which the Met Council associates with rising operation costs, were looked at with skepticism by Councilmen Richard Weber and Michael Freer.
“Their business is to stay in business,” Weber said of the Met Council.
Currently, metered residences in Forest Lake pay a minimum quarterly fee of $52.50 in sewer fees, plus another $5.46 per 1,000 gallons used after the initial 5,000 gallons, while non-metered homes pay a flat quarterly rate of $86.63. A 5 percent increase would bump those numbers to $55.10, $5.74 and $90.96.
If the city decided to go to a pay-as-you-go system for lift station repairs and other maintenance, however, its sanitary sewer system would need to see revenue increases of 15 percent each year for at least the next three years. That doesn’t mean that sewer rates would rise that much each year, as revenue is also based on use, but the increases would be significant and annual – and large enough that Freer called the idea of the council annually raising rates by that much “literally laughable.”
A 15 percent increase would move the metered quarterly minimum fee to $60.37, the additional charge per 1,000 gallons to $6.28, and the flat non-metered fee to $99.62.
“I want to get to pay-as-you-go, but 15 percent increases for as far as the eye can see, … I don’t think is going to pass any council,” Freer said.
Freer preferred that the city bond for at least some of the lift station costs instead, paying back the costs more gradually from the sewer fund rather than through large fee increases each year; other council members joined him in his reluctance to raise sewer rates so quickly. Goodman and City Administrator Aaron Parrish said they typically try to avoid bonding for such projects when possible, with Parrish making the case that bonding for large building projects makes more sense because the bond lasts over the lifetime of the project. Sewer and lift station maintenance is an ongoing need, he said, and budgeting for it as a consistent and ongoing expense allows a city to better avoid spending fluctuations and ably include the costs of the maintenance in the budget on an annual basis.
“You need to be doing one of these a year,” he said of the lift station repairs, later noting to The Times that ideally, to keep up with maintenance needs, staff would prefer to complete at least two lift station repairs per year.
In Goodman’s presentation, he listed 19 lift stations that city staff has deemed priority 1 or 2, meaning that there are issues with the stations that the city thinks should be addressed soon. The estimated cost to fix all 19 of those stations is $5.22 million.
If the council did not wish to raise the rates high enough to allow the city to fix the stations on a pay-as-you-go basis, said Parrish, the city should still try to build up sewer funds for maintenance costs as fast as it’s willing to do so in order to get to a pay-as-you-go basis eventually.
“Whatever number you feel like you can tolerate, let’s do that,” he said.
Councilman Ben Winnick also suggested that the city look into alternative means of paying for parts of the station rehabilitation. He pointed out that the state Legislature is currently in a bonding year and said that the city should try to gain some state bonding funds to cover some of its costs. He also joked that it would be nice for the city to have “an extra $9 million lying around right now” to spend on the repairs, referring to the city’s 2014 decision to contribute money to the construction of a YMCA in town.
The council will discuss the fee schedule as a whole on March 14, when members will vote on the 5 percent sewer rate increases to account for increased charges from the Met Council. The body will tackle the method of paying for the maintenance and repairs on March 21. Currently, Parrish told The Times, city staff is preparing multiple proposals that combine fee increases with an initial bond that could pay for as much as the first five years of work, including as many of the top priority stations as possible. In Goodman’s report, 10 lift stations were listed as “First Priority,” with an estimated total cost of $2.67 million to complete.