4. SR 02-20-1995 - Laserfiche WebLink

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~~,~ `~1 ITEM 4. ity of ~~ MEMORANDUM River TO: Mayor & City Council lk • FROM: Pat Klaers, City Admi or DATE: February 20, 1995 SUBJECT: UPA Request for Rebate of Sanitary Sewer Bills Representatives from UPA will be at this City Council meeting to discuss with the City Council a possible sanitary sewer billing rebate. UPA believes that it has been overcharged on its sanitary sewer bill and that they deserve a rebate. The recent history of the UPA bills is interesting and confusing. All sewer bills are based on water consumption and things started getting complicated at UPA when they began using City water for their air conditioning and cooling system. This water was not discharged into the sewer system, but discharged directly into the river. Accordingly, UPA believed that they . should not have been charged based on water usage, but should have been charged on what was discharged into the treatment plant. No meter was installed by UPA to determine how much was discharged into the treatment plant, but, by mutual agreement, the billed amount was based on fifty percent of the water usage amount. This agreement took place in about 1991. Another factor in the UPA bills that shorted the City was the fact that the Municipal Utilities mischarged a number of large consumers around 1992-93. The Council may recall discussion regarding the Utilities billing one third of the rate that should have been charged out. This resulted in UPA paying only one third of the total that it should have. About a year ago, this error was corrected. However, from the City point of view, for about two years UPA only paid 33 percent of what it should have. Also about one year ago, improvements were made at UPA, and the WWTP Superintendent understood that all of the facilities at UPA were then hooked up to the City water system and that no private wells were being used. Accordingly, WWTP Superintendent Darrell Mack sent a letter to UPA that advised them that they would be billed at 100 percent of the water usage and no longer at the 50 percent rate. Evidently this letter did not get to the right people at UPA and the increased fees were charged and paid for about eight • months before the situation was brought to the attention of the appropriate 13065 Orono Parkway • P.O. Box 490 • Elk River, MN 55330 • (612) 441-7420 • Fax: (612) 441-7425