Sewer rate hikes are in store as Marathon finishes treatment plant

With work winding down on Marathon City’s new wastewater treatment plant, local residents can expect their sewer bills to increase a couple more times over the next year as part of a plan to pay for the $8.7 million facility.

At a utility commission meeting last Wednesday, village administrator Andy Kurtz said the village is following through on its multi-year phasein of rate increases to ensure enough revenue is available to pay back money borrowed from the DNR’s Clean Water Loan Fund. He said the CWLF requires the sewer utility to have enough money to cover its loan payments, plus 10 percent extra for capital replacement reserves.

Under a resolution approved by the commission last year, a rate hike of 19 percent took effect on July 1, which will be followed by a final 19 percent increase on January 1, 2024. The commission has previously raised sewer rates in each of the last three years, with the cumulative increase set to be 86 percent over five years.

Kurtz said starting the gradual rate increases in 2020 allowed the village to raise money for a “down payment” on the plant, lowering the amount of money it needed to borrow.

“At the end of the day, it’s less painful on the rate increase side for the customers, it’s saving us interest expense over the life of the loan because we’re borrowing less, and there isn’t that shock factor of a 100-plus rate increase on January 1 of 2024,” he said.

Prior to the string of annual rate increases, Kurtz noted that the cost of the village’s sewer services had not increased for over 10 years.

“Our water rates and our wastewater rates had been pretty stable for a long time,” he said. “There hadn’t been any increases even though our costs had continued to increase.”

Commission chairman Andy Berens noted that the village will soon have a brand-new sewer plant in operation, in addition to a relatively new water plant.

“The point is, our maintenance should be relatively low going forward,” he said.

Kurtz said work is continuing to progress at the new plant, “to the point where they’re running out of things to do until the electrical gear shows up.” He had previously expressed concerns about delays in the project, but he said the components were projected to arrive last Friday.

With a tentative goal of “seeding” the new Aero-Mod digester on July 20, Kurtz suggested that members of the commission could tour the new facility at its August meeting, almost a month after it starts operating.