Agenda - Council Work Session - 02/27/2018

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Metropolitan Agencies The Metropolitan Council has identified a majority of sewered communities in the metropolitan region to be contributing excessive inflow and infiltration into the regional wastewater system or to be on the threshold of contributing excessive inflow and infiltration. Inflow and infiltration are terms for the ways that clear water (ground and storm) makes its way into sanitary sewer pipes and gets treated, unnecessarily, at regional wastewater plants. The number of identified communities is subject to change, depending on rain events, and any city in the metropolitan area can be affected. The Metropolitan Council establishes a surcharge on cities determined to be contributing unacceptable amounts of I/I into the wastewater system. The charge is waived when cities meet certain parameters through local mitigation efforts. Metro Cities recognizes the importance of controlling I/I because of its potential environmental and public health impacts, because it affects the size, and therefore the cost, of wastewater treatment systems and because excessive I/I in one city can affect development capacity of another. However, there is the potential for cities to incur increasingly exorbitant costs in their ongoing efforts to mitigate excessive I/I. Metro Cities continues to monitor the surcharge program and supports continued reviews of the methodology used to measure excess I/I to ensure that the methodology appropriately normalizes for precipitation variability and the Council's work with cities on community specific issues around I/I. Metro Cities supports state financial assistance for Metro Area I/I mitigation through future Clean Water Legacy Act appropriations or similar legislation and encourages the Metropolitan Council to partner in support of such appropriations. Metro Cities also supports resources, including identified best practices, information on model ordinances, public education and outreach, and other tools, to local governments to address inflow - infiltration mitigation for private properties. Metro Cities recognizes the recommendations of a 2016 Inflow -Infiltration Task Force that support considering the use of a portion of the regional wastewater charge for private property inflow -infiltration mitigation. Any proposal to utilize the wastewater fee for this purpose must include the opportunity for local officials to review and comment on specific proposals. Metro Cities supports continued state capital assistance to provide grants to metro area cities for mitigating inflow and infiltration problems into municipal wastewater collection systems. 4-N Sewer Availability Charge (SAC) Metro Cities supports a SAC program that emphasizes equity, transparency, simplification and lower rates. Metro Cities supports a "growth pays for growth" approach to SAC If state statutes are modified to establish a "growth pays for growth" method for SAC, the Metropolitan 2018 Legislative Policies 45