By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

A public meeting about the upcoming rebuild of the Hays wastewater treatment plant will be held tonight, July 16, as part of the Hays City Commission work session.

Director of Finance Kim Rupp, Director of Utilities Bernie Kitten, and Stan Christopher from HDR Engineering, the city’s owner-representative for the $30 million project, will be on hand. They’ll discuss the city’s likely application for a State Revolving Fund loan to finance the work.

Springsted Inc., Kansas City, was hired to perform a water and sewer utility rate study for the city. Vice-president Patty Kettles and Rupp will discuss proposed adjustments in the sewer rates. City staff is recommending the monthly sewer base and volumetric user rates should be increased 17% August 1, 2015, 15.5% annually 2016-2020 and 12.0% in 2021.

“By 2021, the average residential user’s bill will have gone up significantly,” according to City Manager Toby Dougherty, “but it’s only partially due to the fact that we’re having to rebuild the facility.”

“Part of it is the fact that we’ve had a sewer system for a hundred years, and we’ve added 120 miles in sewer lines and 1,500 manholes. And when we added and accepted all those lines and manholes, we never determined what it was going to cost to maintain and replace those down the road. So we accepted all this stuff, but we never said we should probably start saving some money or set it aside to replace (the added sewer lines and manholes.) Only recently, have we started quantifying that,” Dougherty explained.

The city must meet new stricter effluent standards by Jan. 1, 2018, as mandated by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the Environmental Protection Agency.

In other business, Dougherty will present the 2016 Budget workbook to the governing body.

The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. tonight in Hays City Hall, 1507 Main.

The complete agenda, including the sewer rate study, is available here.