City unveils $200M integrated sewer plan

In city of Springfield’s final draft of an integrated plan for systemwide stormwater and wastewater improvements, the tab on the first phase comes to $200 million over 10 years.

Springfield Assistant Director of Environmental Services Aaron Kemper introduced the plan to Springfield City Council at last night’s meeting and said the scope of a second phase of improvements would be determined in the ninth year of the plan’s rollout. City and county officials have estimated system upgrades could cost up to $1.6 billion over two decades.

The bill introduced last night would authorize city staff to submit an overflow control plan next month to regulators with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. During the public hearing, four supported the plan, and no one spoke against it. A second reading and vote on the bill is scheduled for the Dec. 15 council meeting.  

Kemper said the city will seek funding for upgrades should the DNR approve the plan. He said the city’s current $50 million early action plan, which is already underway and has prompted some system improvements, keeps wastewater bills stagnant through fiscal 2017. Kemper said it is likely sewer rates would need to increase by around 6 percent annually after 2017 through the end of the 10-year plan.

The goal of the plan, Kemper said, is to eliminate sanitary system overflows, which are prohibited under the 1972 Clean Water Act. SSOs occur when stormwater causes overflows in the city’s wastewater pipes.

Kemper said enforcement of the act via the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with assistance coming from the state DNR, has been slowly gaining momentum over the past 20 years. In 1995, the city entered into a consent judgment to develop a long-term plan to come into compliance with the Clean Water Act. Since that time, Kemper estimated the city has spent $180 million on upgrades, largely to determine the best way forward for systemwide improvements.

In 2011, council approved a $50 million early action plan, which has focused on upgrading private connections to the city’s public stormwater and wastewater infrastructure. The initiative included a series of sewer rate hikes that are still being implemented.

While the $200 million bill for public improvements is a significant investment for the city’s aging infrastructure, consent agreements for municipalities in other areas of the state are steeper, Kemper said. In Kansas City, he said officials have projected to need $4.5 billion in improvements, and St. Louis residents face $4.7 billion in upgrades. St. Joseph, which has a population roughly half the size of Springfield, has estimated it would need to spend $462 million to come into compliance.   

Kemper told council members proper wastewater collection and treatment was likely the most important service a municipality could provide its residents.

“I would contend that it is so essential for public health that it has prevented more disease than any hospital ever built,” Kemper said.

He said Springfield has around 1,200 miles of wastewater and stormwater pipes covering the city with 1.6 million feet of pipe now over 50 years old and 315,000 feet of pipe over 100 years old.