BPU confirms no waste collection fees in 2025 | News, Sports, Vacancies

BPU confirms no waste collection fees in 2025

There will be no immediate changes to the City Public Utilities Department yard landfill. Nothing firm has been decided for 2026 either.

Representatives from the city’s Board of Public Utilities spoke with city council members this week about yard waste and several other BPU-related items.

BPU CEO David Leathers briefly discussed the budget areas that BPU board members have been working on, namely district heating, solid waste, wastewater and water supply. Leathers said they are making every effort not to increase district heating charges beyond the increase in consumption, and no increase in solid waste rates is expected. Leathers also briefly discussed some of the concerns that have been raised in the community regarding changes to yard litter decals.

“To be clear, nothing will change about the yard waste label in 2025,” Leathers said. “We expect the annual sticker to be introduced in 2025 and we will continue to explore whether we need to do anything about landfill waste. We are also looking at a recycling program. We don’t expect any changes in 2025, but as we approach the end of life of the orange containers and this entire system, employees are rightly wondering whether we should look elsewhere in the recycling program.”

Regarding wastewater and water, Leathers said it is not yet known whether rates will have to increase, but it is expected that water rates will have to increase, a process that will take place over the next month or so. Wastewater volume increased in January 2024, and Leathers said they don’t think there will be a need for an increase in 2025, but that’s not final.

As for electricity, Leathers said nothing has really started yet and that they don’t have the ability to set rates and have to go to the Public Utility Commission to do so. There will be no changes starting in 2025, but Leathers said there is a lot going on at the state level that could affect power rates, adding that it is unrelated to what the BPU will do regarding power rates. There has been no increase in the base rate since March 2016, so if any base rate were to rise, it wouldn’t happen until 2026 at the earliest, he said.

Leathers also updated the council on the city’s microgrid project, which continues to develop. He said they were selected to negotiate the project about a year ago for a Department of Energy grant and that the contract negotiation process has been completed. Plans for project management, public benefit and outreach activities are currently being developed, as well as other administrative and organizational work being done to prepare for the project to move forward. Leathers said the entire project will take four to five years to complete, but they expect work to begin in the next year or two. Installation of electric vehicle chargers in the city will be included in the project towards the end of the project, approximately three to four years from now.

“This is a great project for the community,” Leathers said. “We’re very excited.”

Leathers then discussed the district heating modernization project that BPU has been working on, particularly over the past six months, to communicate and increase community awareness and knowledge. Leathers also discussed the possibility of further development of the project, grants for design work and exploring potential interest in a residential component.

A few years ago, BPU received a grant for water line replacement work, and the first phase of that project was on Washington Street, and the second phase of the project was nearly completed over the summer and included several other streets. Another project on the west side of town is Sewer Shed Number Seven, where Leathers said they received a grant to study the sewer system in the area.

“We have had a lot of problems in Hallock, in front of Ellis, Hallock area, and we are working on them by doing home inspections to identify any potential illegal connections where rainwater is being discharged directly into the sewerage system, which is called an influx. Leathers said. “We are also looking for infiltration. I know an engineering firm did flow monitoring when they built a model of the entire sewer shed.”

Some home inspections were done and found that a few things needed to be changed, which were approved, and Leathers said that while they haven’t gone through too many inspections, about 10 to 15 have been done so far.

Oct. 16 was the date for BPU’s report on the inventory of major service lines, and Leathers said they covered about 95% of all areas of the water system for which they are responsible. The reporting is done and submitted, and Leathers now said a letter from the Department of Health should be received soon, and in the meantime, the BPU will continue to attempt verification to reach 100%.

“The good news is that we examined all the networks in our part of the system, as well as all the services going to the homes … and there were no lead-lined systems reported,” Leathers said.

The fuel system, which is controlled by the control unit, was also raised following a council issue. Leathers said conversations about different options are ongoing and that the BPU wants to move on from this, but investigations are still underway and steps forward are being considered.