The Dexter Board of Aldermen voted to place a bond issue on the April ballot at a special meeting at the Dexter Municipal Building Monday evening.
The bond issue will seek a $32 million USDA loan through a bond issue to construct a new wastewater treatment plant to replace the two existing plants. The two existing plants are not in compliance with state regulations.
City Administrator David Wyman said the current plants were built in the 1980s and in 2009 the east plant began to have compliance issues. Wyman said the city spent a great deal of money making attempts to stay in compliance but in 2021 things came to a head with neither plant being in compliance. The city was issued an ultimatum by the DNR stating they had to be in compliance or start receiving fines.
He said the measures being taken by the city were no longer enough and the plants must now be replaced.
City Attorney Yewell “Bud” Lawrence Jr said the city has no choice and this action must be taken per the state. Dexter is not the only community in Missouri going through this, there are several.
The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has recommended a Concentric Basin/Mechanical Plant to replace the two existing plants.
The city is seeking a $32 million bond issue to cover the construction and engineering costs.
The loan would be payed back over 35 years (420 months) at a rate of three percent. The city would pay $123,152 a month. This will require a new sewer rate per month. The estimated rate per month month would be $33.73 per account in addition to the current assessed rate. There are 3,651 sewer accounts in the city.
Should the bond issue not pass the city could pay for the new plant by increasing the sewer charge $70.86. This amount was determined by using the DNR recommendation of two percent of the average median income in the city. The average median income in Dexter is $42,521.
The city also has the option to do nothing. However, if the city takes this option it will immediately start incurring fines for the east plant at the rate of over $15,000 a month which would be $182,500 a year. Wyman said fines soon start for the west plant and the city would then pay $362,000 a year.
The city would be fined separately for each plant because each plant is considered independent.
Wyman said the city also has the option to build two smaller plants but they will cost $20 million each.
If this option is taken the state would ultimately take over and set customer rates for sewer and water pushing the customer bills even higher than the other two options.
The board elected single plant option and to place the bond issue on the ballot. The new plant would be constructed at the current west plant site. The east site would be retained to handle overflow and a piping and pump sytem would be installed to link the two sites.
Other Business
The board approved the hire of Dravin Barks by mayer Jason Banken to the sanitation department.