The Valley Signal

Government & Accountability

Driggs to Build Wastewater Plant for Both Cities, the Only Design Regulators Will Permit

The Driggs wastewater plant will be sized for both cities after a 4-0 vote, the only design regulators will permit and the cheaper one as Victor sues.

By Valley Signal Staff · ·

DRIGGS — The Driggs City Council voted 4-0 on June 16 to design the rebuilt Driggs wastewater plant large enough to keep treating the City of Victor. City staff presented it as the only option left, and the council called it one it had "no choice" but to take. On the record the city built that night, it was also the cheaper plant, the one Driggs can bill Victor for, and the one that protects the state money already lined up. It was the obvious call, as much as a forced one.

The rebuild itself is not optional: it is required by Driggs's 2025 federal consent decree, the settlement of a Clean Water Act case the United States brought against Driggs alone. The only question on June 16 was how big to build. Public Works Director Jay Mazalewski put it to the council: "Do we include or exclude the city of Victor service area?" The motion's answer is to include Victor, directing Forsgren Associates, the city's design engineer, to draw the plant for both cities over a 20-year horizon.

Why a Driggs-only plant was off the table

The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) approved a Driggs-only design on May 15, then rescinded that approval seven days later, citing the unsettled legal status of the 2011 inter-city agreement under which Driggs treats Victor's sewage. Driggs is still under contract to serve Victor, and that contract runs to at least 2031.

Driggs staff met with DEQ on June 15, and with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) on June 16, Mazalewski said. His account: DEQ "will not approve the design without including the Victor service area" unless Victor first provides a legally binding commitment to leave the system. "That has not been provided," he said, and the city had no evidence it would be. EPA and DOJ, he said, were "okay with either plant size" but would need an updated timeline, which staff estimated would add roughly 6 to 12 months. Driggs asked Victor for the binding commitment three times, Mazalewski said: a letter from city attorney Sam Angell of Hall Angell & Associates, sent before the prior meeting, resent, and followed by an email to Victor's council and staff the day before.

The case for building big, beyond the permit

Staff recommended sizing the Driggs wastewater plant for both cities to secure DEQ approval, hold it in compliance, and protect the funding, roughly $26 million that Mazalewski said DEQ has approved through its state revolving fund based on the earlier, Victor-inclusive design. Driggs was "the number one ranked project" in Idaho for wastewater funding, he said, and the city would seek to amend that award upward to cover the full design cost rather than reapply.

The larger plant is also the cheaper one per ratepayer, a point Driggs' own engineer has made before and one the statement delivered on Victor's behalf acknowledged later that night. Building a mid-sized, 15-year plant "is going to cost as much as we get to the 20," Mazalewski said, recapping design engineer Dave Noel; the existing Driggs-only system is already "maxed out." A Driggs-only plant would open in 2030 at 97 to 98 percent capacity if Victor stayed connected, too full to meet its federal discharge limits, according to a May 28 capacity memo from Noel. Staff told the June 2 council that growth would otherwise consume the plant's remaining headroom about the time it opened, leaving Driggs to halt new connections.

"We still have a valid contract with the city of Victor," Mazalewski said, "and we'll bill them accordingly. There's a couple different billing clauses in there depending on legal's interpretation." In his May 27 letter, Angell invoked Section 3(A) of the 2011 agreement to put Victor on notice that it could be liable for a proportionate share of the rebuild's debt service. The clause frames that as one of two options Victor may elect: pay into the capital cost up front, or decline and have Driggs pass the debt service through. It is not a charge Driggs sets on its own, and which reading governs is among the interpretations Mazalewski left to the lawyers. Either way, including Victor in the design keeps a paying, contractually bound customer on the Driggs wastewater plant the city must rebuild to federal standards regardless.

Why Victor is suing

Council members and most of the room treated Victor's lawsuit as the obstacle, at points as inexplicable. Victor's breach-of-contract suit, City of Victor v. City of Driggs (CV41-26-0062), has a documented basis. It rests on a CPA examination the two cities jointly commissioned, which found Driggs overbilled Victor for years under a cost-allocation method the agreement does not authorize, and on a federal record of more than two decades of permit violations at the Driggs wastewater plant Victor was paying to use. The consent decree, the December 2028 deadline, and the federal liability all sit on Driggs. Driggs disputes Victor's claims, and the merits are being litigated in a venue moved to Jefferson County. Both are true at once: Driggs must build, and Victor has a grievance the record supports.

Driggs officials also cast Victor as unwilling to engage. The fuller record cuts against that. The two cities mediated for nine hours on January 21 before reaching impasse, and the joint powers settlement Victor has offered, with shared ownership and rate parity, is one its attorney called still "on the table" in a June 1 letter answering Driggs' own May 27 demand. After Victor sued in March, it was Driggs that stopped talking: Mayor Christensen has said the city had not contacted Victor since the filing because "it is not recommended to communicate with someone who is suing you." And the commitment Driggs faults Victor for withholding, a binding pledge to disconnect, is the outcome Victor is contesting; its offer asks to co-own the plant, not to leave it.

"We don't have a choice"

The council framed the vote as forced. "In the absence of the letter or the commitment we've asked from Victor several times now, we don't have a choice but to move forward," Council President Allison Michalski said. Councilmember Jason Popilsky said he saw little choice "when you can't get a permit to build a plant on your own." Councilmember Miles Knowles said that if Victor's lawsuit succeeds, it would "bankrupt the city of Driggs," citing "rough math" he put at "$15,000 of debt for every individual in Driggs," and said the only alternative to the larger plant was a smaller one that would "stop development in its tracks for both cities."

Mayor August Christensen cast the decision as a burden. "The city of Driggs is needing to step up to be the adults in the room," she said, acknowledging "a lawsuit from our neighbors who we are now moving towards" if the motion passed. "I cannot tell you how much time, emotion, energy and money this has taken from my city." The council framed the vote without revisiting the city's January mediation, Victor's standing settlement offer, or the mayor's own decision to stop contacting Victor after the suit.

After a first motion was withdrawn, a council member moved again: "I move to direct Forsgren Associates to design the wastewater treatment plant to include the city of Victor service area." It passed 4-0, with Johnston, Popilsky, Michalski and Knowles all voting aye.

Public comment

The council took public comment before the vote. Most speakers urged the larger plant and pressed Victor to settle, several identifying themselves as from Victor though they live in the county, where they hold no vote in the city's elections.

Niki Richards, speaking for Valley Advocates for Responsible Development (VARD), a local land-use advocacy nonprofit, took the opposite position on plant size. She asked the council to send Victor a "will not serve" letter and questioned why Driggs would "build for connections Victor plans to account for themselves," warning that an oversized system could push Driggs "to push for more development, more density, more connections just to justify and offset those costs." She urged the council to "cut your losses, Driggs, and wish Victor well." But she closed on the rift: "the best interest of this valley is not to remain divided," she said. "We still support a solution that puts our community first."

No Victor council members appeared to answer questions, and the June 16 agenda set aside no time for Victor to present as a party. The invitation Driggs cited had been for the June 2 meeting; this time, Victor's only opening was the public-comment period, open to any resident. Victor councilwoman Sue Muncaster used it to read a letter saying open-meeting law and the active litigation made it inappropriate for council members to appear outside a properly noticed joint meeting, and that Victor's legal team would respond to Angell's letter "as soon as we possibly can." She offered the one point of agreement across the city line: it is "likely that [Driggs] must design a facility capable of serving both cities until Victor has an operational independent facility," she said, and "the most cost effective solution requires sizing the facility to serve both cities for 20 years." She backed forming a joint working group of staff, engineers, financial advisors and legal counsel from both cities, and said: "no one on Victor city council is interested in bankrupting the city of Driggs." The council held her to the same three-minute limit as any resident and cut her off mid-sentence, the second meeting in a row.

What to watch: Driggs' design work now proceeds for the larger, Victor-inclusive plant; staff said the regulatory timeline will need to be updated, adding roughly 6 to 12 months, and the city will seek to amend its state funding award to cover the full design cost. Victor's written response to Angell's letter is pending. The cities' breach-of-contract lawsuit, CV41-26-0062, remains in Jefferson County, with no hearing date set.

Sources

Waste Water