SEWER RATES
Recommend 3% Increase for Residential Customers

The Water Reclamation Division collects and treats wastewater in accordance with state and federal regulations for the City of Sioux Falls, two sanitary districts, and the City of Brandon.

The division is responsible for the operation, maintenance, and repair or replacement of the Wastewater Treatment Facility (completed in 1986), 21 lift stations and 800 miles of sewage collection pipe. Each year the system collects and treats over 5.5 billion gallons of wastewater and returns it to the Big Sioux River. The collection system serves over 46,500 individual customer accounts, 43,000 of which are residential. Sioux Falls continues to have an excellent record of providing preventative maintenance in the sanitary sewer collections system. A facility and work order management database schedules and monitors maintenance and the entire system is mapped in a GIS system.

WHY ARE WE RAISING RATES?

Additional revenue is needed to account for the increases in operational costs (chemical, electricity, personnel, etc.) and capital investments into the system. The division has several capital projects planned to rehabilitate and improve the existing collections system in 2011. The projects include: Effluent Filter Replacement ($3,240,000), Elimination of Lift Station 208 ($453,000), ESSS Treatment Land ($2,500,000), and Roof & HVAC Replacements ($569,000).

The advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility also has several projects planned in the upcoming years to maintain and extend the useful life of the 25-year-old facility well into the future.