The Valley Signal

Government & Accountability

Driggs Says a Wastewater Partnership Is Off the Table. Its Staff Said Regulators Are Open to It.

Driggs says it can't enter a wastewater partnership with Victor, but its staff said regulators are open to moving the permit. Council tabled to June 16.

By Wade Williams · ·

DRIGGS — Driggs Council President Allison Michalski told Victor's representatives on June 2 that the city cannot enter a wastewater partnership through a joint powers agreement (JPA) because Driggs alone holds the federal permit and the consent decree behind it. Earlier in the same meeting, the city's public works director and its attorney had told the council the opposite: that state and federal regulators are open to moving that permit to a jointly owned entity. The council voted unanimously to table the decision to June 16.

The council met to settle one question, how big a plant Driggs should build. Victor's attorney forced a second one onto the table the night before.

In a June 1 letter to Driggs counsel Sam Angell, Victor attorney Jeffrey Brunson said Victor would help pay for the mandated upgrades on two conditions: that the cities "share in ownership and control of the WWTP," and that Victor residents "pay no more in wastewater treatment charges than Driggs residents gross of all costs." Brunson asked Driggs to say by June 3 whether it "agrees in principle."

At the podium, Victor City Administrator Jeremy Besbris framed the wastewater partnership as Victor taking on a share of the plant's liability. A JPA would make the plant "a separate entity" run by a board of "fiduciaries" who set rates. Victor wants "a seat at the table if we're having to pay out for capital improvements," he said. "We think that's fair." He described the structure as carrying "shared liability ... shared governance." It would fold into a settlement of the cities' lawsuit, he said, an agreement "to dismiss all claims against each other and move forward."

Whether Driggs can legally share that permit is the question Michalski said was closed. Two members of her own staff said it is open. Public Works Director Jay Mazalewski said the city had already asked the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). "We did approach the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality previously whether we could change the permit holders, and they said yes," Angell said he had put the same question to the federal side. "We raised this with Department of Justice lawyers and floated the idea ... Could we potentially switch this permit to a joint district that's holding it? And they were open to that," he said. "My hunch from them is that they could live with that."

So Michalski held the line: "The City of Driggs is not able to enter a JPA because of our consent decree, which we have repeatedly discussed." Besbris pointed back at the staff. "I thought what I heard from Jay and from Mr. Angell just a second ago was that they would entertain a JPA."

Driggs's reluctance has a concrete source: the consent decree. It "is lodged with the City of Driggs," Mazalewski said, and he was not sure it could be transferred. Angell said any transfer would have to be "phased" and "worked around the consent decree" rather than signed in a day. The timing favors Victor, too. The 2011 inter-city agreement runs through Sept. 30, 2031, and allows Victor to take two five-year extensions "at Victor's sole discretion," which could bind the two cities through 2041. If Victor joins a partnership and then cannot deliver its own plant or its land, Angell said, Driggs alone still answers for the permit.

Councilmember Sarah Johnston pressed the price of "equitable." Victor's terms ask Driggs to share "trunkline costs," and Johnston said the 2011 agreement already assigns them elsewhere. "Each party shall be responsible for their own collection system and trunk lines," she read. Charging Driggs residents for half of Victor's line "is not a cost that I can justify to my constituents."

Instead of choosing a plant size, the council tabled the question 4-0. Reverting to the larger design would blow the 90% engineering milestone set by the consent decree for early August, project engineer Dave Noel told the council, so Driggs needs its regulators to grant more time first. It meets with DEQ on June 15 and with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) on June 16, with a public hearing that evening.

Driggs redesigned its plant for a single city in 2025, after Victor said it would leave and build its own. DEQ approved that smaller design on May 15, then rescinded the approval seven days later, citing the 2011 agreement and the lack of any legal disconnection. Driggs is still under contract to treat Victor's sewage. Victor, for its part, lost the land it had under contract, "recently terminated by mutual rescission," Brunson wrote, and Besbris said the city now runs "parallel tracks," still pursuing its own plant while offering the partnership.

If Victor stays connected, a Driggs-only upgrade would open in 2030 at about 97% capacity, Noel said. The design buys room for roughly 800 more single-family homes above today's combined flows, but Mazalewski said growth would consume that headroom by about the time the plant opened, leaving Driggs to halt new connections. The bigger plant costs more up front, roughly $31 million against $25 million, though Noel called those figures old and not yet recalculated. Spread across all users, he said, the bigger plant is the cheaper one: "It will cost you more to do the smaller plant than the bigger plant if everybody that's using [it] pays the same amount."

Victor Councilmember Amy Ross crossed to the Driggs podium during public comment to break with her own city's letter. "I did not have a say in that," she said. "I'm sorry that Victor chose that path." Johnston, who told the council she is also a Victor ratepayer, said both cities lose the longer the lawsuits run. "The residents lose because these lawsuits cost a lot of money, and that money is leaving the valley," she said. "It is not a zero-sum game."

Angell told the council the wastewater partnership talk arrives against silence. Since Victor sued in March, he said, Driggs has heard "no other communication from them about where they're at with their plan or what they're doing. Zero," beyond the June 1 letter.

What to watch: Driggs takes public comment at its June 16 meeting and revisits the plant decision that evening. The open question is whether the council pursues the partnership its own staff said is possible, or holds to the position that it can't. Victor's lawsuit is still pending.

Sources

Waste Water