Mayor Subs As Sewer Operator, Illustrates State Of Infrastructure

In Dennison, MN, the water and sewer infrastructure is so far out of compliance with safety codes that the village has been unable to hire people to operate parts of the system.

Instead, the mayor has been subbing in.

Every day, including weekends and holidays, Mayor Jeff Flaten “drives to a sewer lift station on the west edge of the tiny Goodhue County town, pries opens a manhole-size steel lid and climbs 15 feet down a ladder in a metal tube to make sure the village’s two wastewater pumps are working,” the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.

“Flaten, 49, a state corrections officer with a college degree in sociology, didn’t know anything about operating a sewer pump before he was elected. On a couple of occasions, he said, he’s had to restart the pumps by hand. About once a week, he also has to clean out a screen that catches debris before it clogs the pumps,” the report said.

The village of 190 residents is asking the governor for $726,000 to build an above-ground lift station, and it has proposed to chip in around $50,000.

Dennison may seem like a desperate case, but the village is hardly alone. It is just one of hundreds of small cities in rural Minnesota “with diminutive tax bases that are struggling to find money to replace aging wastewater, stormwater and drinking water systems or upgrade them to meet changing environmental standards,” the report said.

The American Society of Civil Engineers says Minnesota will require $7.4 billion for drinking water infrastructure over the next two decades, and $4.1 billion for wastewater infrastructure.

The Pioneer Press provided examples of locations in similar straits:

• Afton, population 2,953, in Washington County, doesn’t have a municipal sewer system, so about 100 homes and businesses in the city’s Old Village rely on private septic systems that pose a pollution threat, as many are in the St. Croix River flood plain. The city is getting final state approvals and taking construction bids for a municipal sewer collection system and wastewater treatment plant. City administrator Ron Moorse expects the system to be operational by the fall at a cost of more than $4 million, with the state picking up about half the tab.
• Chisholm, Buhl, Kinney and Great Scott Township, combined population 6,745, in St. Louis County. Less than two years after opening a $28 million Central Iron Range Sanitary Sewer District wastewater treatment plant, operators were told the plant failed to meet strict new federal mercury discharge limits for facilities releasing water into the Great Lakes basin. So the district is now adding a mercury removal facility. Price tag: more than $4 million. Local officials have asked the state to foot at least half the bill. “Without the grant money, we just wouldn’t be able to do it,” said sewer district executive director Norm Miranda.
• Mountain Lake, population 2,134, in Cottonwood County. The city used to have a problem with stormwater infiltrating its sanitary sewer lines and overloading its treatment plant, forcing the city to pump sewage into its namesake lake. It spent $12 million from 2012-14 to fix its sewer lines. Now, the city wants a state grant to help pay for a $13.4 million project to rehabilitate and expand its old and overloaded stabilization pond system.
• Winnebago, population 1,394, in Faribault County has an aging sanitary sewer system with numerous maintenance problems, including storm- and groundwater seeping into leaky sewer mains, which has caused backups into basements and overflows into the Blue Earth River. “We’ve had whole potatoes from gardens end up at the wastewater plant,” said city administrator Chris Ziegler. The city is seeking $3.7 million from the state for a $6.6 million project that would separate its sanitary sewer and stormwater systems.

Experts say the nation’s water infrastructure is in crisis. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, "at the dawn of the 21st century, much of our drinking water infrastructure is nearing the end of its useful life. There are an estimated 240,000 water main breaks per year in the United States."

"Assuming every pipe would need to be replaced, the cost over the coming decades could reach more than $1 trillion," the society reported, citing the American Water Works Association (AWWA).

To read more about the state of the nation’s water infrastructure, visit Water Online’s Asset Management Solutions Center.