City’s Environmental Services department floats idea of sewer rate increases 

A proposal for sewer rate increases is in the works, Springfield Director of Environmental Services Errin Kemper told City Council members at a lunch meeting yesterday. 

Kemper outlined a 3% increase to the base rate and a 5.1% increase to a volume charge for a net systemwide increase of about 4%. That increase would vary among user class, meaning high- or low-volume users would experience different levels of increase. 

It is a goal of the city to keep sewer rates affordable, Kemper said. He listed 15 Missouri benchmark cities, among them larger ones like Kansas City, St. Louis, Columbia and Independence, but also some smaller cities like Nixa, Ozark and Republic.  

Kemper said in general, Springfield’s residential customers pay 23% less than the average Missouri customer, while commercial customers pay 44% less and industrial customers pay 30% less. 

“This is really good,” he said. “If you’re a residential customer, you’re getting a pretty good deal, but the fact that our commercial and industrial customers are also seeing a pretty good deal means that it makes us a really attractive place to do business.” 

He added that for major industrial customers that use a lot of water, their wastewater bill is a significant part of their operational costs. 

Environmental Services staff plan to work on communicating the coming changes to customers and obtaining feedback with a council bill to be presented in February 2026. The rate increase would be effective July 1, 2026, if council approves it, and this will give customers time to budget for it, Kemper said. 

Kemper said the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, of which Springfield is a member, does an annual cost of clean water report industrywide, and the projected national average increase from 2025-29 is 5%-6%, he said. 

Some other rate increases and system changes are also planned, he said. Industrial customers will face increased surcharges for discharging ammonia at $1 per pound and phosphorous at $4 per pound. 

Additionally, increases are planned in hauled waste fees, which is for liquid waste that is hauled to treatment facilities via truck, including septage, grease, municipal sludge and industrial high-strength waste.  

“We have seen a dramatic increase in wastewater volumes in recent years – fivefold over the last 10 years,” Kemper said, adding that regulatory drivers are causing the city to charge more for treatment of high-strength waste. 

Kemper said his department’s proposal is for Springfield’s treatment facilities to not accept leachate from regional landfills after Dec. 31, 2028, and to increase rates by about 100% during the three-year period leading up to that. 

“Most facilities in the state of Missouri don’t accept landfill leachate,” he said. “It represents kind of a risk, and considering we discharge into one of the more pristine streams in Missouri, we probably don’t want to be one of the only facilities that take it.” 

The fee for hauled high-strength waste, which cannot be put directly into the sewer system but can be delivered to treatment plants by truck, would increase by 37% over three years, with council approval, Kemper said. 

He added that the fee for treatment of municipal sludge would go up by 295% over three years. This is a product of the sewage treatment process and is often handled through land application, he said. 

Kemper said Springfield has had such a cheap rate for area communities bringing in their sludge that it has cost the city money to dispose of it. The increase will have an impact on local communities, he said. 

Councilmember Craig Hosmer asked Kemper what communities would do with leachate after three years when Springfield plans to discontinue accepting it. 

Kemper said it would have to go somewhere else, and the three years will give them time to plan. He added that not a lot of facilities do accept leachate, citing St. Louis as one that does, but saying he did not know which others did. 

As a result, Kemper said, area leachate producers must either treat it down to a level where it can be accepted at Springfield treatment plans or be discharged into a stream, or they will have to haul it somewhere that can handle it. He added that his department will help them with that transition as much as it can. 

Hosmer also questioned why residential users pay 76% of the Missouri average, while commercial users pay only 56%. 

“Is there a reason why commercial users pay so much less than residential?” he asked. 

Kemper said that was likely a volume issue, with a split in Springfield rates between volume and base charges. Other communities have different rate systems, and the difference could be a function of rate design. 

Kemper said the increases are proposed within the context of the Integrated Plan for the Environment, a cooperative effort of Springfield, Greene County and City Utilities of Springfield. 

“We’re one of just a handful of communities in the United States that has an approved integrated plan through the Environmental Protection Agency,” he said. “It’s pretty neat when the EPA knows who you are and it’s for good reasons instead of bad reasons.” 

The plan and about a decade of technical studies can be viewed at SpringfieldIntegratedPlan.com, he said. 

Springfield’s sanitary sewer system has separate pipes for stormwater and sanitary sewer, Kemper said, with more than 28,000 service holes and more than 80,000 individual connections and 1,200-plus miles of pipe – enough to extend from Springfield to New York City, he said.