Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
The city of Palouse is considering a sewer rate increase.
After talking about how to combat rising costs at the town sewer plant for the past several months, an ordinance to raise rates $2 per month was on the agenda for the next city council meeting June 11.
Palouse Mayor Michael Echanove said the recent cost increases have to do with overall inflation as well as problems with items deemed “flushable,” which have caused clogs at the plant’s lift station.
The situation has gone so far as Palouse Public Works Superintendent Dwayne Griffin contacting manufacturers such as Play-Tex and Kimberley-Clarke, to ask that they change the labeling on some of their “flushable” wipes products.
“They act like I’m the first guy that’s ever called about it,” said Griffin.
He also has contacted Wilson Engineering of Bellingham which designed the Palouse sewer plant in 1994. Griffin talked with them about ways to improve the rake system which scoops debris out of the 18-year-old facility.
“It’s a phenomenon now because all these new products are on the market,” said Echanove.
The products’ manufacturers, in turn, have insisted to Griffin the products are biodegradable. While the public works superintendent said that may be the case, there is not enough time for them to degrade before they get to the sewer plant.
Griffin indicated that the problem in Palouse has arisen in the last two or three years.
“And it’s just getting worse,” he said.
In Palouse, sewage flows in pipes by gravity toward the plant, where it is pumped up and into the treatment area with a lift station. Once the sewage and any other items make it into the plant itself, they are sifted by a rake system.
The issue is in getting up and into the plant, said Griffin, since the “flushable” items get stuck in the pumps of the lift station.
“We need some kind of pre-rake system, a screening system,” Griffin said. “We don’t have anything before the lift station pump, that’s the problem. It’s not a $15 fix, it’s gonna be pretty expensive.”
Griffin said that he and Don Myott, Palouse’s Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator, have cleared out obstructed pumps four or five times this year already, including three times in one week.
Earlier this spring, the Palouse City Council granted Griffin permission to buy a replacement pump for the lift station. The $6,000 item will arrive in the next few weeks, said Griffin, who will in turn pull one of the old pumps to refurbish as a replacement.
“It’s making me more nervous with the amount of solids we have not to have a spare pump,” he said.
Solids refer to solid items in the sewer pipes, which shouldn’t be there, including the new wipes as well as tampons, condoms and other items.
Mayor Echanove said that other rising costs related to the sewer system are the inflation of things such as testing, analysis and power rates.
“Month to month expenses are going up,” Echanove said.
The proposed sewer rate increase would raise the sewer charge from $24 per month to $26.
The rates cover operations as well as loan payments and future infrastructure.
The loans involved include one for the original construction as well as another for the addition of a sludge press in 2007, which makes bulk bricks out of the sludge to be used for land application.
The $1.6 million Palouse sewer plant will be paid off in two years, Echanove said. The original loan was $363,000, with grants added to it.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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