It is determined and declared to be necessary and conducive to the protection of the public health, safety, welfare and convenience of the City to collect charges from all users who contribute wastewater to the City’s treatment works. The proceeds of such charges so derived will be used for the purpose of operating, maintaining and retiring the debt for such public wastewater treatment works.

(Ord. 736; Ord. 754; Code 2017)

Unless the context specifically indicates otherwise, the meaning of terms used in this article shall be as follows:

(a)   “BOD” (denoting Biochemical Oxygen Demand) shall mean the quantity of oxygen utilized in the biochemical oxidation of organic matter under standard laboratory procedure in five (5) days at 20°C, expressed in milligrams per liter (mg/l).

(b)   “Normal Domestic Wastewater” shall mean wastewater that has BOD concentration of not more than 30 mg/1 and a suspended solids concentration of not more than 80 mg/1.

(c)   “Operation and Maintenance” shall mean all expenditures during the useful life of the treatment works for materials, labor, utilities, and other items which are necessary for managing and maintaining the treatment works to achieve the capacity and performance for which such works were designed and constructed.

(d)   “Replacement” shall mean expenditures for obtaining and installing equipment, accessories, or appurtenances, which are necessary during the useful life of the treatment works to maintain the capacity and performance for which such works were designed and constructed. The term “operation and maintenance” includes replacement.

(e)   “Residential Contributor” shall mean any contributor to the City’s treatment works whose lot, parcel of real estate, or building is used for domestic dwelling purposes only.

(f)   “Shall” is mandatory; “may” is permissive.

(g)   “SS” (denoting Suspended Solids) shall mean solids that either float on the surface of or are in suspension in water, sewage, or other liquids and which are removable by laboratory filtering.

(h)   “Treatment Works” shall mean any devices and systems for the storage, treatment, recycling, and reclamation of municipal sewage, domestic sewage, or liquid industrial wastes. These include intercepting sewers, outfall sewers, sewage collection systems, individual systems, pumping, power, and other equipment and their appurtenances; extensions improvement, remodeling, additions and alterations thereof; elements essential to provide a reliable recycled supply such as standby treatment units and clear well facilities; and any works, including site acquisition of the land that will be an integral part of the treatment process or issued for ultimate disposal of residues resulting from such treatment (including land for composting sludge, temporary storage of such compost, and land used for the storage of treated wastewater in land treatment systems before land application); or any other method or system for preventing, abating, reducing, storing, treating, separating, or disposing of municipal waste or industrial waste, including waste in combined storm water and sanitary sewer systems.

(i)    “Useful life” shall mean the estimated period during which a treatment works will be operated.

(j)    “User charge” shall mean that portion of the total wastewater service charge, which is levied in a proportional and adequate manner for the cost of operation, maintenance and replacement of the wastewater treatment works.

(Ord. 736; Ord. 754; Code 2017)

(a)   The user charge system shall generate adequate annual revenue to pay costs of annual operation and maintenance including replacement and costs associated with debt retirement of bonded capital associated with financing the treatment works which the City may by ordinance designate to be paid by the user charge system. That portion of the total user charge, which is designated for operation and maintenance including replacement of the treatment works, shall be established by this article.

(b)   That portion of the total user charge collected which is designated for operation and maintenance including replacement purposes as established in section 15-304, shall be deposited in a separate non-lapsing fund known as the Sewer Reserve Fund and will be kept in two primary accounts as follows:

(1)   An account designated for the specific purpose of ensuring replacement needs over the useful life of the treatment works

(c)   Fiscal year-end balances in the operation and maintenance account and the replacement account shall be carried over the same accounts in the subsequent fiscal year, and shall be used for no other purposes that those designated for these accounts. Monies which have been transferred from other sources to meet temporary shortages in the operation, maintenance and replacement fund shall be returned to their respective accounts upon appropriate adjustment of the user charge rates for operation, maintenance and replacement. The user charge rate shall be adjusted such that the transferred monies will be returned to their respective accounts within the fiscal year following the fiscal year in which the monies were borrowed.

(Ord. 736; Ord. 754; Code 2017)

(a)   The rates to be charged for sewer service furnished by the City of Bucklin for residential and commercial consumers shall be Thirty Dollars ($30.00) per month

(b)   Any user which discharges any topic pollutants which cause an increase in the cost of managing the effluent or the sludge from the City’s treatment works, or any user which discharges any substance which singly or by interaction with other substances causes identifiable increases in the cost of operation, maintenance, or replacement of the treatment works, shall pay for such increased costs. The charge to each such user will be as determined by the responsible plant operating personnel and approved by the Council.

(c)   The user charge rates established in this article apply to all users, regardless of their location, of the City’s treatment works.

(Ord. 736; Ord. 754; Ord. 758; Ord. 850; Code 2017)

The rates to be charged for sewer service furnished by the City of Bucklin for residential and commercial consumers shall be Thirty Dollars ($30.00) per month, billed monthly pursuant to the provisions of Ordinance No. 690.

(Ord. 850; Code 2017)

Billing and payments shall be as provided in Article 1 of Chapter 15.

(Ord. 736; Ord. 754; Code 2017)

The City will review the user charge system every year and revise user charge rates as necessary to ensure that the system generates adequate revenues to pay the costs of operation and maintenance including replacement and that the system continues to including replacement costs among users and user classes.

(Ord. 736; Ord. 754; Code 2017)