BPU reiterates no charge for yard waste in 2025

There are no immediate changes to the city’s Board of Public Utilities’ yard waste disposal facility. Nothing firm has been decided for 2026 either.

Municipal Board of Public Utilities officials spoke with City Council members this week about yard waste and several other BPU-related items.

BPU General Manager David Leathers briefly discussed the budget areas that BPU board members have worked on in the areas of heating, solid waste, wastewater and water. Leathers said they are working hard to not have to raise rates in District Heat aside from increased consumption, and no solid waste rate increase is anticipated. The skin also briefly brought up some concerns that have been addressed in the community regarding changes to yard waste stickers.

“Just to be clear, there is nothing in 2025 that will change for the yard waste sticker,” Leathers said. “We’re looking at a one-year sticker in 2025 and will continue to look at whether we need to do anything different with the yard waste site. We are also looking at the recycling program. We don’t anticipate any changes in 2025, but as we come to the end of life of the orange bins and the whole system, staff rightly wonder if we should be looking at something different for the recycling program.”

For wastewater and water, Leathers said it’s not yet known if rates should go up, but it’s anticipated that water rates will have to go up and there will be a process to go through in the next month. Wastewater saw an increase in January 2024, and Leathers said he thought it wouldn’t need to increase for 2025, but it’s not set in stone yet.

For electric, Leathers said nothing has really started and they don’t have the ability to set the rate, having to go to the Public Service Commission for that. Starting in 2025 there won’t be any changes, but Leathers said there’s a lot happening at the state level that can affect electric rates, adding that’s not something the BPU would do to electric rates. There hasn’t been a base rate hike since March 2016, so if any base rate hike was due, he said it’s something he doesn’t expect to happen until at least 2026.

Leathers also updated the council on the city’s microgrid project, which continues to progress. He said they were selected to negotiate the project about a year ago for a grant from the Department of Energy and the contract negotiation process is complete. Project management and community benefits and expansion plans are being worked on, along with other administrative and organizational activities being done to be ready to move forward with the project. Leathers said the overall project will take four to five years to execute, but he anticipates starting work in the next year or two. The installation of electric vehicle chargers in the city will be included in the project towards the end of the project in about three or four years.

“It’s a great project for the community,” Leathers said. “We are very excited.”

Leathers then discussed the Retool heating project that BPU has been working on, particularly the past six months in outreach and community awareness and knowledge. Leathers also discussed the feasibility of the project in the future, grants for design work and investigating potential interest in a residential component.

BPU received a grant for water main replacement work a few years ago and the first phase of that project was on Washington Street, with the second phase of the project nearing completion over the summer covering several other streets. Another project on the west side of town is Sewer Shed Number Seven, where Leathers said he received a grant to do investigative work on the sewer system in that area.

“We’ve had a lot of problems in Hallock, in front of Ellis, in the Hallock area, and we’re working on that with home inspections to look for any illegal connections where rainwater is dumped directly into the sewer system, called influx,” he said. Leathers said. “We are also looking for infiltrators. I know the engineering firm did flow monitoring as part of building a model for the entire sewer shelter.”

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

Oct. 16 was the BPU’s reporting date for the inventory of lead service lines, and Leathers said it reached about 95 percent of all areas of the water system they are responsible for. The reporting is done and handed in and now Leathers said a letter from the Department of Health should be in soon and in the meantime the BPU will continue to try to check to get to 100%.

“The good news is we’ve investigated all the mains on our side of the system and we’ve investigated all the service lines going to the homes … and no lead-lined systems have been reported,” Leathers said.

The fueling system operated by the BPU was also brought up following a question from the council. Leathers said discussions about different options have been ongoing and it’s something the BPU is trying to get away from, but investigations are still ongoing and steps forward are being considered.