The city of Spokane expects over the next 12 years to spend $533 million on waste-water improvement projects, using money that some 70,000 utility customers here pay each month in rate-stabilization fees.


That cost estimate could double if new stricter state standards for phosphorus removal are implemented, says Roger Flint, public works and utilities director.


The city first began collecting rate-stabilization fees for waste-water projects in 1998, at $2 a month per utility customer, but later bumped the fee to $4 a month, and then to $7. The fund where those fees go already has been tapped for some major projects, and currently has a balance of about $50 million in it, Flint says.


He says more than $20 million of that will be spent in the next year to finish the design and construction of new digesters at the citys big waste-water reclamation facility in northwest Spokane, and for other upgrades at that plant, which serves much of the Spokane metropolitan area.


The big improvements are yet to come, though.


Flint says a total of $171 million will be spent between now and 2011 to make additional upgrades to the plant, including installing new filtration equipment at the back end of the plant, where the last treatment is done to waste water before its discharged into the Spokane River.


That final-filtration system would include either membrane or sand filters intended to remove nutrients (including phosphorus) from the waste water.


Flint says that about 200 seven-by-seven-foot filtration units would be needed to serve a treatment plant the size of Spokanes.


Those improvements, however, would only enable the plant to comply with current state standards, Flint says.


The Washington state Department of Ecology has proposed even stricter standards, which currently are being studied and have been criticized as being unattainable.


I dont know if those stricter standards can be achieved with existing technology, says Flint, suggesting that if they end up being implemented, the city might have to stop discharging treated water into the river, and instead pipe it to Lincoln County, where it could be used for irrigation.


That, he says, could cost another $500 million.


Flint says that of the $533 million the city already expects to spend, about $362 million of it will be spent by 2017 to increase Spokanes waste-water collection, storm-water collection, and combined sewer overflow capacities to meet other environmental rules mandated by the Department of Ecology.


All of the improvements will be paid for by rate stabilization fees, says Flint. I dont anticipate having to go out for a bond at all.


He suggests, as a rule of thumb, that every additional dollar added to the fee will generate about $1 million in the rate-stabilization fund.


Flint says waste-water rate-stabilization fees are anticipated to rise again to $10 a month next year, and to $13 a month in 2007, then stay at that rate for the next 20 years. He says the City Council has approved the public works department+s three-year rate schedule in concept, but will have to ratify it each year.


Flint is an ardent proponent of the waste-water stabilization fees, as well as of the citys new $3.50 per month stabilization fee for water service. That fee went into effect Jan. 1.


The water stabilization fee already has generated several hundred thousand dollars and will be used to replace and upgrade water transmission mains that have been in the ground for up to 100 years, says Flint. He says money from that fund also could be used for reservoir construction.


I dont know of any other city our size that has rate-stabilization fees in place to pay cash for major projects, he says.


Ron Nicodemus, the citys utility billing manager, says such fees and the funds they fuel save the city money because it doesnt have to pay interest on bonds to finance the needed work.


If you go to a bond issue, a large portion of the cost goes into paying interest on the bond, says Nicodemus. Oftentimes, with the rate stabilization fund, a bond is not necessary and we save the cost of having to sell the bond as well as the interest. For the city its a win-win-win situation. It not only saves money, but it generates money as well.


The standard monthly residential utility bill within the city limits currently is about $11 for water, $27 for sewer, and $22 for garbage service with a 68-gallon refuse can, totaling up, including the rate stabilization fees, to around $60.


Utility rates outside the city limits are about double those in the city, says Nicodemus, although rate-stabilization fees are the same as those applied within the city.


Flint says the city imposes no rate-stabilization fee for its refuse services, and only a minor fee for the regional solid-waste system.


Reducing overflow in the river


Most of the planned improvements to the citys waste-water and storm-water collection systems are targeted at boosting their capacity to handle overflows.


The improvements, mandated by the Department of Ecology, would reduce the amount of waste water that bypasses the treatment plant and goes directly into the river when discharges exceed drainage capacity during storms.


Several years ago, the city greatly reduced the amount of untreated waste water that dumps into the river during storms when it separated the storm-water and sewer-water collection systems on the citys North Side, says Flint.


Until that time, the North Side was the biggest source of river contamination, but that project increased overall capacity to hold storm water and waste water until it could be handled by the treatment plant.


The storm-water and waste-water systems on the south side of Spokane, however, have never been separated, and that area and the downtown, experience direct overflow into the river during major storms.


We have reduced that untreated overflow into the river by 80 percent in the last 20 years, says Flint. But getting the next 20 percent taken care of will be more expensive.


The Department of Ecology has set a compliance schedule that requires the city to reduce drastically by 2017 the number of overflow events into the river.


Spokane now has 20 overflow collection points, with the most problematic ones being at the east end of the South Hill and downtown, says Flint.


Though possible solutions to that problem are still being discussed, one possibility is constructing underground waste-water storage vaults that would collect storm-water and waste-water overflows during a storm and hold that water until the waste-water treatment facility could handle the additional flows.


Flint suggests that could be a less expensive alternative than separating the storm-water and waste-water lines elsewhere in town as was done about 15 years ago on the North Side.


Increasing the size of storm-water collection, waste-water collection, and combined sewer overflow pipes also will constitute a significant portion of the $362 million expenditure, Flint says.