LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) -- For more than half a century, the Morris Forman Quality Treatment Center off Algonquin Parkway along the Ohio River has treated Louisville's wastewater, responsible now for treating 62 percent of Jefferson County's sewage and up to 325 million gallons a day.
"It's been over 20 years since we did the last replacement," MSD Treatment Facilities Director Alex Novak said. "Everything is near the end of its useful life. We're really keeping it going with Band-Aids."
The treatment center, and much of MSD's infrastructure, is in need of upgrades and repairs, but many of those projects have been put on the backburner in recent years as MSD has put much of its capital spending into the EPA-mandated Consent Decree, aimed at decreasing pollution into the Ohio River and Louisville's waterways.
The MSD board voted Monday to approve a rate increase of 6.9 percent, which is the proposal the board preliminarily voted through in May. According to MSD, the rate hike will increase the average wastewater bill by $3.47 and the average stormwater bill by $0.68 each month. The rate increase will begin on August 1.
"Water is worth it," Novak said. "We're here to really protect the health and safety of the public."
MSD has raised its rates each year for more than a decade and this will be the fourth year in a row that MSD has approved a 6.9 percent increase. Novak said customers should expect to see similar rate increases in the near future as they work on funding the different projects.
Novak said unlike Louisville Water, which gives its customers a product, MSD's job is to remove the wastewater, which means unless something goes wrong, most people won't actually see directly where their money goes.
"We're trying to have them not see what we do and not know what we do, but at the same time, kind of appreciate what we do," Novak said.
According to MSD, the rate increase is expected to bring in around $17 million more. MSD will invest around $14 million towards upgrading key water quality treatment facilities, which includes $5.7 million on new equipment at Morris Forman.
MSD will also continue to reduce pollution from sewer overflows, with more than a half of MSD's $205 million capital plan for the 2020 fiscal year going towards meeting the Consent Decree goal to reduce the majority of combined sewer overflows and sanitary sewer overflows that pollute the waterways in the Louisville area by 2024. This includes the Waterway Protection Tunnel, four miles of underground storage tunnel that runs from downtown to Lexington Road and Grinstead Drive.
"There's no profit at MSD," Novak said. "Nobody is walking away with profit out of this."
Novak said without the rate increase, many parts of the treatment centers would fall into disrepair, which would call for the EPA to step in and mandate that they get repaired, which would still cost customers.
"Now if you go and sell bonds, sell that money and say we're going to do that without rate increases, then our bond rating goes down," he said. "When we get a lower bond rating, then we pay a higher interest on all the money we're borrowing. So it actually ends up costing more."
►Contact reporter Dennis Ting at dting@whas11.com. Follow him on Twitter (@DennisJTing) and Facebook.
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