As sewer hike looms, St. Joseph re-envisions long-term plan to address mandates
Cameron Montemayor
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (News-Press NOW) — Over the last 25 years, St. Joseph sewer rates have risen by more than 400%, a significant increase fueled by more than half a billion dollars in mandated improvements to address regulations and prevent sewage overflows into the Missouri River.
From around $13 a month in 2000, the average sewer bill now sits at $65.70 for an in-city resident in 2025. On Monday, City Councilmembers will vote on a proposal to raise rates by 3% in both 2025 and 2026, with the first increase taking effect July 1 if approved.
Local parents Marc and Stephany Carpenter often pay a sewer bill more than twice the average. The longtime Lake Contrary residents see a higher rate due to their home falling outside city limits but still being connected to the city’s sewer system, as is the case with many residents surrounding St. Joseph.
“It’s always been about $100 to $150 on the sewer bill,” Marc said.
With five kids at home to care for, the Carpenters lament how much sewer costs have grown over time. The family’s challenges are compounded by large increases for almost every major utility this year, including water (17% monthly increase), electricity (7% monthly increase) and proposed increases for natural gas.
“Having five kids, it puts a toll on us,” Stephany said. “Instead of using the money for the kids, I put it on an extra bill.”
If new sewer rates are approved, residents would see back-to-back years of increases after six years without one between 2017 and 2023. A previous council voted to use roughly $5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to keep sewer bills stable for several years, a short-term fix.
City, regulators create retooled plan
After more than 15 years and roughly $250 million spent on a wide range of critical projects to address sewer overflows and federal water regulations in phase one, city leaders are ready to move on a re-envisioned phase two plan that guides the next 20 to 30 years of infrastructure improvement projects for the Water Protection Facility, sewer overflow controls and new technologies for the pre-treatment process.
But unlike previous requirements that came with challenging schedules that often created significant cost concerns for the city and its customers, particularly lower-income households, the new Water Quality Integrated Plan (IP) strikes a stronger balance between prioritizing new investments for sewer and water quality requirements and long-term financial constraints on customers.
“It takes all of those into account and sequences out the projects in a way that allows us to not have debt weighing us down to the point we have to continually raise rates,” said Eddie Leaverton, superintendent of water protection. “There is significant rate savings over the next two to three decades due to the change in this plan.”
One of the IP’s key provisions is a longer project timeline that extends to 2050, versus the previous date of 2035, which likely would have caused the average residential sewer bill to jump to more than $120 a month in the next 10 years.
Sewer bills are now expected to average around $80 a month by 2035 under the new plan. A longer timeline also buys time for bonds from previous sewer projects like the $48 million Blacksnake Creek Project to mature, creating more financial flexibility for future projects instead of stacking debt.
Other Midwest river cities like Omaha, Nebraska ($60.12 a month) and Kansas City, Missouri ($79.01) both have comparable sewer rates to St. Joseph.
“Kansas City and Omaha. They’re going through the same struggle as the city of St. Joseph community is with their sewer rates,” Leaverton said.
Integrated Planning was approved by Congress in 2018 through the bipartisan Water Infrastructure Improvement Act to assist municipalities with regulatory challenges. In 2023, the city retained HDR Engineering, Inc., to assist in developing the IP, an 18-month process that required extensive coordination with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The city has received an initial letter from the Missouri DNR approving the plan. Leaverton said he expects to have a five-year schedule for the first round of projects finalized by the end of the summer.
“What we’ve been doing is evaluating our system and our collection system and our treatment plant, looking at projects completed … What is still left to be done to meet the regulatory requirement?” he said.
Key progress to date: an aging system and sewer overflows
One of the root causes of the city’s dramatic rise in sewer rates lies with its 415-mile-long combined sewer system, 60% of which was built pre-1920.
Combined sewers are a commonly used system where sewage as well as stormwater are both captured in the same system and directed to the Water Protection Facility off Stockyards Expressway, which treats and safely discharges it into the river.
For years, storms and heavy rain events would overwhelm sewers and collection spots, resulting in overflows of untreated wastewater into the Missouri River. Untreated wastewater can contain contaminants, including microbial pathogens, suspended solids and chemicals, creating public health and environmental hazards.
“The EPA and DNR stepped in and said you have to do something to rectify this … due to the fact that we are violating the Clean Water Act with our combined sewer overflows,” Leaverton said. “The city has completed phase one of that.”
Two of the largest projects to date worth an estimated $60 million, the Blacksnake Creek and Whitehead Creek separation projects, required the construction of massive stormwater pipes to intercept water from flood-prone creeks and direct it to the Missouri River.
The Blacksnake Creek project in 2018 saw a massive 300-foot excavating machine cut a 6,700-foot-long pipe deep underground, a multi-year process that finished in 2022, taking considerable pressure off the treatment facility and sewer system.
“That separated out millions of gallons per day that came to the plant, whether it was raining or not,” Leaverton said. “Those separation projects were big.”
Construction of a new $26 million Candy Creek Pump Station by Riverside and Pickett roads was key in replacing a smaller and outdated facility that was struggling to service the growing east side of town.
The city also made sizable improvements to large retention ponds like Corby Pond. Along with being a popular recreation spot, the pond is also designed to hold water during rain events and slowly release it to the plant over time, reducing pressure on the entire system.
A key project carried out at the Water Protection Facility in 2016 was the Ammonia Removal Improvements project, a $50 million effort that upgrade the treatment process by adding a BioSolids dryer facility, grit facility and replacing aging headworks.
“All those projects were important, but we would like to be able to prioritize what those projects are,” said Abe Forney, director of St. Joseph Public Works and Transportation. “We can’t have these massive projects all pile up in the same couple of years.”
Integrated plan lays out a wide range of new projects
The city has aggressively pursued grants as well as state and federal funding sources to try and reduce costs and the impact on ratepayers, including using millions in ARPA funds and $7 million from the Water Resources Development Act spearheaded by Congressman Sam Graves in 2022.
“We run down every avenue that we can to try to save money at any place that we can. We live in this city. You know, we pay the sewer bill that everybody else pays,” Leaverton said.
In April, Councilmembers unanimously approved an ordinance to accept a $2.1 million grant from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the blower replacement project at the Water Protection Facility, a critical device that pumps air into water to boost its oxygen content.
He said one of the IP’s biggest enhancements is an additional $26 million re-allocated for sanitary sewer rehabilitation work, called cured-in-place pipe lining, a modern and less invasive method of rebuilding aging sewer pipes.
“It’s almost like a new pipe inside of the old pipe. It’s a structural apparatus that just basically makes a new pipe, but it’s just inside of the old infrastructure,” Leaverton said. “We spend around $2 million to $2.5 million every year doing that. The integrated plan is going to step that up.”
The largest project on the horizon involves upsizing the Whitehead Pump Station and implementation of a high-rate treatment facility at the Water Protection Facility, a 20-acre site, allowing them to rapidly treat more water that comes in during rain events.
One of the first key efforts though carrying out the first hydraulic study in 12 years, which will help provide a thorough and updated picture of how captured storm and wastewater travels throughout the city, which has changed with new development occurring on the east and north sides.
“It’s going to be a completely redone citywide hydraulic model. That will allow us to target the projects in a sequential order to do the biggest gains first,” Leaverton said. “And then we’ll start more on the ground construction work.”
Inflation has also had a significant impact on the cost of required projects and the need to create more flexible timelines, which will prove to be critical with new regulations on the horizon in 2030 on how much phosphorus can be discharged in treated water.
“That ten-year gap. You know, that’s a pretty big jump typically. But then after 2020 and COVID and all the supply chain issues and all the inflation, above what would be normal, it really did put pressure on those projects,” Leaverton said.
Wastewater is treated through an extensive process at the Water Protection Facility before being safely transported to the Missouri River. Cameron Montemayor | News-Press NOW