BPU Reiterates No Yard Waste Fee In 2025

There are no immediate changes coming to the city Board of Public Utilities yard waste site. Nothing firm has been decided for 2026, either.

City Board of Public Utilities officials spoke with City Council members this week about the yard waste and several other BPU-related items.

BPU General Manager David Leathers briefly discussed areas of the budget that BPU board members have been working on, in the areas of District Heat, Solid Waste, Wastewater and Water. Leathers said they are working hard to not have to increase charges in District Heat besides the consumption increase, and no rate increase is anticipated for Solid Waste. Leathers also briefly brought up some concerns that have been addressed in the community regarding changes to yard waste stickers.

“Just to be clear, there’s nothing in 2025 that’s going to be changing for the yard waste sticker,” Leathers said. “We anticipate a one-year sticker in 2025 and will continue to look at is there anything different we need to be doing with the yard waste site. We are also looking at the recycling program. We anticipate no changes in 2025, but as we get to the point of end-of-life for the orange bins and that whole system, it is rightly being questioned by staff if there’s something different we should look at for the recycling program.”

For wastewater and water, Leathers said it was not known yet if rates would have to increase, but it is anticipated that water rates will need to increase and there will be a process to go through over the next month or so. Wastewater saw an increase in January 2024 and Leathers said they thought there would be no need to increase for 2025 but it is not set in stone yet.

For electric, Leathers said nothing has really started yet and that they do not have the ability to set the rate, having to go to the Public Service Commission for that. Starting in 2025 there will be no changes, but Leathers said there is a lot going on at the state level that may affect electric rates, adding that that is not something related to what the BPU would do for electric rates. There has been no base rate increase since March 2016, so if any base rate had to increase he said it is something not expected to happen until at least 2026.

Leathers also updated the council on the city microgrid project, which has been continuing to progress. He said they were selected to negotiate the project about a year ago for a grant from the Department of Energy and that the contractual negotiation process is completed. The project management and community benefits and outreach plans are being worked on, along with other administrative and organizational work that is being done to get ready to move forward with the project. Leathers said the overall project will take four to five years to execute but they anticipate beginning work in the next year or two. Installation of electric vehicle chargers in the city will be included in the project towards the end of the project in about three or four years.

“It’s a great project for the community,” Leathers said. “We’re very excited.”

Leathers then discussed the Retool District Heating Project the BPU has been working on, specifically over the last six months in communication and bringing awareness and knowledge to the community. Leathers also discussed looking at the feasibility of the project going forward, grants for design work and an investigating potential interest in a residential component.

The BPU received a grant for water main replacement work a few years ago and the first phase of that project was on Washington Street, with phase two of the project being almost completed over the summer, covering a few other streets. Another project on the west side of the city is Sewer Shed Number Seven, where Leathers said they have received a grant to do investigative work on the sewer system in that area.

“We’ve had a lot of issues in the Hallock, front of Ellis, Hallock area and we’re working through that with home inspections to look for any potential illegal connections where there’s rainwater being dumped directly into the sewer system, called inflow,” Leathers said. “We also look for infiltration. I know the engineering firm has done flow monitoring as a part of building a model for that entire sewer shed.”

Some home inspections have been done and found some things to be changed, which was approved, and Leathers said while they have not gone through too many, about 10 to 15 have been done so far.

Oct 16 was the BPU’s report date for the Lead Service Line Inventory, and Leathers said they reached around 95% of all of the water system areas that they are responsible for. The reporting is done and turned in and now Leathers said a letter from the Department of Health should be received soon, and in the meantime the BPU will continue to try and verify to get to 100%.

“The good news is we have investigated all of the mains in our part of the system and we have investigated all of the service lines that go to the houses … and there was not one lead lined system reported,” Leathers said.

The fuel system operated by the BPU was also brought up following a question from the council. Leathers said conversations about different options have been ongoing and that it is something the BPU is looking to get away from, but investigations are still being done and steps forward are being looked into.