Sarpy Sewer Project Gets Boost Through Omaha Partnership
Sarpy County is making a major investment to continue as Nebraska fastest growing county as it builds out a sewer system serving the southern portion of the county.
The Sarpy County and Cities Wastewater Agency – formed in 2017 by the county government and the cities of Bellevue, Papillion, La Vista, Gretna and Springfield to explore building a new sewer system – signed an agreement with the City of Omaha earlier this year to treat the region’s wastewater.
The deal represented a departure from the county’s original plan to build its own wastewater facility along the Platte River.
“The original plan called for us to have a private partner – someone who would come in, build their own wastewater treatment facility and we would run all the pipes at the new facility,” county spokeswoman Megan Stubenhofer-Barrett told The Daily Record. By joining the new southern Sarpy sewer system to the City of Omaha’s existing system, which runs along Papio Creek to a facility in Bellevue, the county stands to save millions of dollars, Stubenhofer-Barrett said.
“There’s no final estimate on what that would be,” she said.
Jim Theiler, assistant director of environmental services for the City of Omaha Public Works Department, said the partnership is great for Omaha, Sarpy County and the entire metro area.
“It will open up a new area for development that will add to the size of the metro area by providing treatment at our facility and not having to expend those dollars,” Theiler said.
The city will bring in additional revenue while helping the Sarpy County Wastewater Agency save on costs – a win-win scenario.
“It was good government at work to come up with a solution that will ultimately save costs for everyone,” Theiler said.
A public hearing is scheduled today to lay out plans for the system to property owners and interested stakeholders. The meeting starts at 4 p.m. with public comment concluding by 6 p.m. in the board room of the Sarpy County Administration Building, 1210 Golden Gate Drive. Participation is also available by Zoom by registering at sarpy.com/boards-commissions/Wastewater-Agency where a livestream will also be available of the proceedings. Written comments after the meeting will be taken through Jan. 8.
Development in Sarpy County has mostly been north of the ridgeline dividing the Papio Creek and Platte River watersheds. Gretna straddles the ridgeline, but Bellevue, Papillion and La Vista all lie north of it.
Springfield Mayor Bob Roseland said his city has its own sewer system but plans to eventually decommission it and connect with the unified sewer system as the area around Highway 50 continues to expand.
“We looked at cost of revamping ours and, in the long-term goal, it will be a better deal for our city than building our own and we are looking to keep the cost down as much as we can,” Roseland said.
The wastewater agency originally had planned to build a new facility south of Springfield to serve the area. Instead, the system will be linked to the existing sewers that funnel wastewater to a treatment plant just southeast of Offutt Air Force Base.
Stubenhofer-Barrett said Omaha reached out to Sarpy County to join the project.
“It’s a win-win,” she said. “The county saves money by not having to build and operate a plant with a private partner and the biggest thing with Omaha is the revenue they get from treating the wastewater – it’s additional customers for them essentially.”
The ridgeline has divided the county into highly desirable land and largely undeveloped land for years, and the unified sewer project seeks to make the rest of the county – about 70,000 acres – accessible for developers.
“It’s been a hindrance to development of any kind, either housing has to build a septic system or a problem for any kind of industrial and commercial real estate because of the natural ridgeline that divides the county in half,” Stubenhofer-Barrett said.”
Don Kelly, chairman of the Sarpy County Board of Commissioners, said that Sarpy County has been putting in sewers for the past three decades.
“Right now, we are in the process of buying right of way to put main trunk lines in and lift stations,” Kelly said. “We should be installing the infrastructure, hopefully starting in 2021. It will take a few years to get the construction done. The development will follow where the infrastructure leads.”
The new system will be built in phases over the next 40 years. The first phase will bring sewer to 48th and 60th streets south of Papillion around Zwiebel Creek.
“Then, as the infrastructure is done, the rest will follow,” Kelly said.
The sewer project will be funded with PILOT funds, which are payments in lieu of taxes made by the Omaha Public Power District, as well as user and connection fees from development.
The estimated cost of building a wastewater treatment plant was $40 million.
Avoiding that part of the project will help the finances of the project, for which officials plan to avoid using property taxes. The entire project had been estimated at about $220 million.
“The cost to build the system will be lower because we won’t have to build a new wastewater treatment plant,” Stubenhofer-Barrett said. “The fact that it’s not a private company will likely bring some savings, but the real savings will come from not having to build and operate the treatment plant.”
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