Recent rate increases in wastewater treatment has the Doolittle City Council at least considering building it’s own plant at it’s meeting Tuesday.
Bud Konieczny, a representative of TG Rankin in Chesterfield, Mo. was on hand to discuss the possibility of constructing wastewater systems using a media filter.
Currently, the city of Doolittle sends its wastewater to be processed in Rolla, which charges it a fee based 60,000 gallons of wasterwater a day which will cost the city approximately $3,800 a month.
During the October meeting, the City Council approved raising sewer rates to compensate for increased rates from Rolla.
Rates Doolittle pays on non-metered units were raised from $10.85 to $12.04. The council voted to raise residential rates from $34 to $36.
Individuals who have vacant property will now pay $18 instead of $17.
Building its own system, would be a way for the city to mitigate these cost increases.
“Well, we are certainly interested. We don’t like to be in the position of seeing our sewer rates continually go up,” Mayor Paul Smith said.
The system Konieczny proposed would cost the city between $300,000 to $600,000, depending whether the city needed two systems. It does not include a flow meter in the price.
For metered units, the city’s charge to Rolla increased from $2.06 to $2.35. The city charge will rise $0.10 per 1,000 gallons of water for all commercial property.
