When Minnesota lawmakers failed to pass a bonding bill this session, it meant a $1.2 million request by the Clearwater - Clear Lake Sewer Authority had failed for the third time.

 

In each of the last three years, the sewer authority sought state funding for upgrades for the wastewater treatment facility that would make it more efficient and lower current and future costs.

 

Clearwater Mayor Pete Edmonson was one a group of officials who spoke before the House and Senate about the project.

 

One part of the project involves the construction of a rapid infiltration basin system that allows wastewater to slowly seep into the ground and eventually make its way to the aquifer. The treatment facility currently treats and discharges approximately 66 million gallons into the Mississippi River each year.

 

The basins would eliminate the cost of chemicals and the need to discharge into the river.

 

The second part of the project would be the construction of geotubes, where biosolid waste is stored in large porous tubes above ground, from which water is drained and treated until the solids are compacted into “mulch” which can then be sold or provided to residents as fertilizer.

 

Currently, biosolids are stored in ponds where they slowly break down. Eventually, those ponds will fill up and the solids will have to be transported by truck to be land-spread at other locations.

 

“That cost is going to add up in the future,” says Edmonson. “We want to get out ahead of that with the geotubes.”

 

The geotube process is currently working well in larger facilities in other states. And the Clearwater - Clear Lake facility has enough room to store plenty of the 10’x10’x50’ tubes over an extended period of time.

 

But neither of those projects will get state funding, at least this year. The request was specifically itemized with other projects in the $2 billion Senate bonding request, but not in the $800 million House bonding bill. It was later dropped from the Senate bill as part of a compromise to make the bill more palatable. It didn’t matter as no bonding bill was passed.

 

Edmonson says unless Rep. Jim Newberger gets the request back in a bonding bil at a special session, it’s unlikely the project will get state funding. Newberger said he would vote for the bill if the project was included.

 

The sewer authority meets again in July. One of its topics will be how to approach the project in the future.