Mayor: Nothing decided on privatizing wastewater treatment plant

Grand Island Mayor Margaret Hornady is frustrated by the letters to the editor in The Grand Island Independent commenting about the city's determination to privatize the wastewater treatment plant.

"That's inaccurate. We are not doing that," the mayor said during the start of Tuesday's city council meeting.

"We asked, we voted, to explore the possibility of doing it. All we did was say that since the wastewater treatment plant manager had retired, that it was a good time to explore the options whether that would make sense for Grand Island or not," the mayor said.

Wastewater Superintendent Ben Thayer left city employment this spring, although Thayer and the city had differed on the departure date and both declined to discuss the "retirement."

The wastewater treatment plant has had recent infrastructure problems due to deterioration of concrete pipes installed in the 1960s, said Steve Riehle, the public works director who oversees the wastewater division. The city has begun a program to telescope the interior of pipes and begun repair work, he said.

The plant has also been plagued in the last year with notices of violating its wastewater discharge permit issued by the Department of Environmental Quality. The violations were all related to overloads sent to the plant by meatpacking plant JBS Swift & Co.

"We are in the process of developing a request for proposals to distribute to qualified and interested firms that specialize in management of municipal wastewater treatment plants," said City Administrator Jeff Pederson.

While no timeline on the request for proposals has been set, Pederson expects that procurement process and evaluation to take "several months."

In the meantime, Human Resources Director Brenda Sutherland posted a job listing April 10 for an "engineering and operations superintendent" at the wastewater treatment plant. Duties include to "manage, direct and coordinate" the wastewater division activities.

The salary range is $49,621 to $69,848 and the position is advertised as "open until filled."

At least one letter to the editor mentioned the city of Scottsbluff having tried privatization of its wastewater plant.

Scottsbluff Wastewater Supervisor Lynn Garton said the management of the Scottsbluff plant was turned over to private firm Earth Tech in 1995. In 1999, Earth Tech was contracted to also manage Scottsbluff's water division.

Scottsbluff resumed management of both its wastewater and water divisions in 2002, Garton said, in order to bring the infrastructure back to its original state.

Garton said the private company hadn't been required to complete all the maintenance necessary to keep the wastewater treatment plant in top condition.

"It was a contract issue … it was a business and they negotiated a contract with the city and the city didn't realize it didn't include some of those things," Garton said. "We really started looking into the cost savings and in the long run there weren't any."

Garton said a privatized wastewater treatment plant also limited the city on expansions to accommodate new business and industry and subjected the city to user fees set by the private management firm.

Pederson said Grand Island is not contemplating full privatization.

"With a public-private partnership, the private partner provides services that would be specified in a contract, which generally involve operation," Pederson said. "The city would continue to own all assets, control the management of the assets, set rates and collect user fees."

Garton said in Scottsbluff's case, at the end of the day, the city still ended up with the bills and responsibility for the assets, so it didn't realize a savings in privatizing the management.

Hornady again emphasized the city is merely gathering information now.

"It will be done deliberately and with all care and the council and the public will be kept informed all the way along the path," Hornady said.  "No decision on (privatizing) has been made yet. So people are misunderstanding that the decision to do it was made. They are mistaken."