Santaquin officials favor sewer plant

SANTAQUIN — Mayor Jim DeGraffenreid urged the City Council on Wednesday to stay the course at it works toward building the city's first sewer-treatment plant.

"During the election, there was push from some community members to go in a different direction," city planner Dennis Marker said.

However, the majority of the council favors moving forward with plans to build the $16.3 million treatment plant on the north end of Santaquin.

"We hope to break ground in the spring," Marker said.

Sewer costs will likely go up with the new plant, which concerns Councilman Fil Askerlund, who unsuccessfully tried to unseat DeGraffenreid in the Nov. 3 election. Askerlund expressed concern about how higher rates would hurt residents on fixed incomes.

The average sewer bill now is $22, but that could rise to as much as $45 if city leaders cannot find new funding sources.

One of the five options officials studied was to partner with Payson and send the effluent there. That could boost sewer rates to about $68 a month, Marker said. Building a system to move the effluent there would cost roughly $13 million.

Santaquin uses a sewer lagoon system west of town that is near capacity. A new 20-year sewer-treatment plant would allow growth to continue. However, city leaders said they hesitate to put a moratorium on city expansion.

Not only would that hurt the construction industry, but the city would lose out on impact and building-permit fees, which are a major part of its budget.

The state engineer in October granted Santaquin a license to re-use 6,000 acre-feet of water per year for irrigation once the treatment plant is in place. DeGraffenreid said that water is worth $30 million annually — which is how much the city would save by not using culinary water in gardens and on lawns. That much water could serve a population of 50,000, Marker said.

One option is to stay with the lagoon system and acquire more land to expand.

"We would need 440 acres for the next 20 years," Marker said.

That option would cost an estimated $19.5 million and would include upgrading some system pumps. The plan would also displace future school sites and a business park, and the water couldn't be re-used in irrigation.

Another option calls for treating the water and sending it to Utah Lake, if the Utah Lake Commission would accept it. The price tag for that idea is $9 million.

City leaders also looked at building the sewer-treatment plant next to the lagoons, but they favor the north Santaquin location because it offers a downward flow. About 60 percent of the city's effluent is pumped uphill now to reach the lagoons.

Funding sources include $2 million the city has saved for the project; $6.4 million committed from various sources — including $4.77 million from the Utah Department of Water Quality; a $500,000 grant from the Central Utah Water Conservancy District; a $350,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency; $790,000 from the Utah Department of Water Resources; and a loan of $7.7 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Water from the lagoons now irrigates 32 acres of city-owned alfalfa. The City Council on Wednesday authorized DeGraffenreid to sign a five-year contract with a neighboring landowner for 100 acre-feet of lagoon water to irrigate land that is now dry.

e-mail: rodger@desnews.com