Researchers Claim They Can Ease Infrastructure Costs In Small Towns

For tiny towns with tiny populations, water and wastewater treatment upgrades can leave a dent in the wallets of individual customers. Just ask water managers in Goodell, IA, home to fewer than 200 people.

Regulators ordered Goodell to upgrade or replace its wastewater treatment systems to comply with pollution regulations. Installing a new system would raise rates by as much as $95 per month for some customers, the University of Iowa (UI) reported in its public outreach publication Iowa Now.

UI engineers are trying to ease the burden on towns like Goodell.

“The plan, says Craig Just, UI civil and environmental engineer and the project’s lead, is to test commercially ready wastewater treatment technologies and gather the information required by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to certify that a system would work in the state. The more wastewater treatment methods tested and approved, the more choices available for small towns — at presumably lower cost,” the report said.

Testing can be a huge cost on small communities.

“It’s like the chicken and the egg,” Just said, per the report. “[State regulators] won’t say a technology can be used until it has the data. But small towns in Iowa can’t afford to try out new technologies and get the data [the state] needs to approve the system. We could provide that service.”

Just is planning to carry out the project to Iowa City’s Wastewater Treatment Plant, a facility that processed an average of 9.66 MGD of wastewater in 2014. He plans to test three commercial wastewater treatment technologies at a time.

“Some wastewater would be diverted from the Iowa City plant to the test systems, and the treated water would be returned to the Iowa City plant for additional cleaning, if needed,” the report said.

Compliance costs are a major burden on water and wastewater utilities, and many industry executives see creative partnerships as a key way to manage costs.

Public-private partnerships, specifically, are an important tool for many utilities, according to a report on the state of the industry by the engineering services firm Black & Veatch.

“As utilities are challenged to minimize rate increases while balancing limited budgets with competing projects, chronic underinvestment, deferred maintenance and compliance mandates, one solution to consider is the public-private partnership model,” the report said.