Area homeowners with septic tanks may get a one-year reprieve from new disposal fees at the city's Shelly lagoon.
In a report going before city council on Monday, city acting director of civic operations Blake McIntosh recommended the proposed $45 per cubic metre disposal fee set to come into effect on Jan. 1 be postponed until Jan. 1, 2022.
"The intent of the volume fee is to generate revenue to offset the costs of operating a sanitary sewer lagoon facility (Shelley Lagoon) that only accepts trucked waste," McIntosh wrote. "Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Council has requested staff to minimize financial impacts on City residents and businesses. Deferral of this fee will defer the costs for users requiring trucked waste disposal."
Under the proposed fees, it would cost $202.50 to dump the contents of a typical 4.5 cubic metre (roughly 1,200 U.S. gallons) residential septic tank, McIntosh wrote. Home septic tanks typically need to be drained and cleaned once every two to three years.
By comparison, a homeowner connected to the city's sanitary sewer service will pay a flat fee of $42 per month in 2021 – $504 per year.
If city council agrees to postpone the start of the new fee a year, then the cost of operating the Shelly lagoon will continue to be covered by the city's sewer utility budget, McIntosh wrote. The utility fees paid by city sewer users fund the sewer utility budget.
"Current plans for the Shelley Lagoon in 2021 include cell berm repair, roadway improvements and cell debris cleanout," McIntosh wrote. "Future plans that will be deferred include engineering studies to determine long term planning for the site, waste disposal of material cleaned out of the lagoon (and) site remediation, cell berm protection measures (rodent damage), and preliminary treatment planning to meet Provincial and Federal discharge requirements. Estimates to complete the necessary studies, disposals/remediation and upgrades are projected to be several millions of dollars."
