Nebraska City council approves updated sewer, natural gas rates - KMAland

Nebraska City council approves updated sewer, natural gas rates | News | kmaland.com

(Nebraska City) -- Nebraska City residents will be paying a little more in natural gas and sewer rates moving forward.

During its regular meeting this week, the Nebraska City City Council approved updated natural gas and sewer rates, which will increase by $4 and $3, respectively. Nebraska City Mayor Bryan Bequette tells KMA News that the increase comes after a study was done on the two utility rates, which looked at the costs, revenues, and future needs. He adds the city is consistently purchasing natural gas to provide for the community. But, Bequette says there is some hope that the natural gas rate could go down again in the future.

"But, that (increase) is contingent on the prices right now and we're blessed that natural gas prices are definitely a lot lower this year than they were last," said Bequette. "So even though the standard rate charge per month is going up a little bit, hopefully the price of the gas is coming down from people have seen in the past."

He adds the last rate increase on the two services was back in 2019. While supply costs are the primary reason for the natural gas increase, Bequette says sewer rates are also up as the city tries to keep the necessary infrastructure up to date.

"Looking at the lifecycle replacement of your infrastructure and just looking at each piece over time and finding what you need," he said. "The last new build that the city did was on our wastewater plant where we added in trickle towers and things like that to modernize it. But, especially when you're doing a new building, you want to make sure you've got excess capacity and that your stuff is modernized."

Meanwhile, while the city's utility services currently have a large surplus, Bequette says the city is also looking forward to more extensive infrastructure work, including a new water treatment plant.

"Our utilities run between a $14 million and $16 million reserve, but we also know that things like our water treatment facility is the next thing that would need modernized and replaced and also give us more capacity," said Bequette. "So, a big part built into those rates is being able to have the money to replace your infrastructure and utility infrastructure unfortunately is not cheap and neither is the equipment that comes with it."

In other business, the council also approved vacating a portion of 11th Corso between 3rd and 4th Street and several equipment purchases, including the purchase of an ATM41 Single Man Bucket truck not to exceed $318,000 and a pair of Ditch Witch trenchers not to exceed $215,000 and $120,000 respectively.