Why Cedar Rapids is spending $277.5M to improve Water Pollution Control Facility

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Cedar Rapids Water Pollution Control Facility in the coming years will see $277.5 million in improvements to enhance its capacity to treat wastewater — a lure for economic development — and reduce its environmental impact with new technologies.

Already one of few advanced wastewater treatment facilities in Iowa, the city has planned for years to make upgrades that align with the state’s strategy to reduce nutrients — nitrogen and phosphorous — that pollute waterways, threatening human and ecological health.

City officials say the improvements could fuel economic development, enticing industries to expand in the growing metro area by readily offering ample utility capacity.

“This is the future of our city,” Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell has said.

The southeast Cedar Rapids facility was built in the late 1970s and became operational in 1980. It serves an area with a population of about 190,000, including Cedar Rapids as well as Marion, Hiawatha, Robins, Palo and part of Linn County.

The facility does not require industrial users to pretreat their waste, as they do in other Iowa communities. Because the city treats high-strength waste, Utilities Director Roy Hesemann said the facility treats the population equivalent of about 1.8 million people.

“In essence, we are an industrial wastewater plant owned and operated by the city of Cedar Rapids,” Hesemann told the City Council last month.

Located at 7525 Bertram Rd. SE near the Cedar River, the facility was inundated when water rose in the 2008 flood. The city completed flood protection work there in October 2014 with a flood wall and pump station, shielding the facility to 3 feet above the 2008 flood height.

Soon after, city officials began to plan for these improvements. Design started in 2015, and since 2019 city officials have engaged with industrial users and the contributing cities for input to discuss rate structures, financing options and business impacts.

Hesemann said the improved processes are an effort “to meet the Nutrient Reduction Strategy, trying to make sure that we have good processes for the future at the plant and then also taking care of our ratepayers and making sure that we were being good stewards of their funding and also good stewards of the environment.”

Cedar Rapids officials explored technology used in other communities serving an approximately 1.8 million capacity including Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Baltimore; Rockford, Ill.; Green Bay and Madison, Wis.; and Des Moines.

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What work will be done?

The improvements will incorporate new processes that Hesemann said will curb greenhouse gas emissions, which increase the earth’s surface temperatures and fuel the climate crisis.

The project will install anaerobic digesters and biogas cleaning and compression systems, as well as new aerobic granular sludge treatment tanks.

Biogas is a renewable energy source generated from raw materials including agricultural and municipal waste.

The aerobic granular sludge basins allow organic waste processing in a smaller footprint, using bacteria to break down solid waste. Air is added to these multiple celled basins, where it processes and dissolves solids before they are incinerated. Eventually, the air is shut off and the cell is drained.

Anaerobic digestion facilities will be built, allowing better destruction of biomass and generation of biogas from all waste entering the plant. Currently, the city captures only a portion of the biogas it receives from waste streams, about 3 million gallons a day, which it uses as fuel to burn biomass inside the incinerator and in boilers.

Once captured, the biogas will be scrubbed and injected into MidAmerican Energy’s natural gas pipeline off-site, Hesemann said. The city will sell the renewable natural gas to MidAmerican at a contracted price, receiving the revenue from the gas and any renewable energy credits based on the open market.

Staff have not evaluated how best to use that new revenue stream, Hesemann said, but “it will aid in offsetting some portion” of future operational or infrastructure costs.

After the gas is released, the solids will be placed in belt presses and centrifuges to be dewatered before being burned in the incinerator. The liquids are treated and a portion is sent to the river.

“This project will provide the resources to support our existing industry and attract new industry while being good stewards of the environment,” Hesemann said.

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Construction will take place from 2024 to 2029. Bids are slated to open June 19.

Crews already have worked on a portion of the existing dedicated anaerobic processes at the Indian Creek lift station, where flow from two existing industries comes in to be pumped directly to the facility’s anaerobic processes. Staff can then release the biogas from that organic stream and use it for fuel in the facility’s incinerator and boilers.

Hesemann said that maintenance before starting the $277.5 million project ensures the facility can process the loads it receives through the duration of construction on the multiyear project.

City Council member Tyler Olson previously said this is ultimately an economic development project — one of the largest the city has ever pursued.

“Communities that are optimistic about their future, that are growing and progressive, have to make this kind of investment,” Olson said. “It’s because we have made this kind of investment over decades — looking forward, predicting future capacity and building to meet it that we have the industry, we have the commerce and we have the growing number of people living here that we do.”

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How will it be funded?

The city hopes federal grants and tax credits intended to combat climate change will pay for about 20 percent of the project.

Cedar Rapids and Iowa City together applied for a Climate Pollution Reduction Grant worth up to $125 million, with $95 million of that to go to Cedar Rapids and $30 million to Iowa City, Hesemann said. The city expects the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to provide preliminary notification on the grant by July.

“If we are awarded funding from the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant, we will put an estimated $40 million toward an additional digester and gas handling system that will replace the current process of food and other organic waste having to go to the landfill and being land applied,” Hesemann said.

Cedar Rapids plans to capture some of the methane generated by the digesters and turn the potent greenhouse gas into renewable natural gas that can be injected into that natural gas pipeline.

“We are estimating this reduction to be the equivalent of an approximate 10-15 percent reduction in (greenhouse gas) emissions” over 25 years, Hesemann said.

Cedar Rapids hopes to claim another $15 to $16 million in federal tax credits that are part of the Democrat-backed Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022.

For the portion of the project cost not covered by federal funds, Cedar Rapids would seek a 20- to 30-year loan through the State Revolving Fund.

The city has been increasing rates for consumers in recent years in anticipation of having to pay for the upgrades, Hesemann said.

In fiscal 2024, the rate was set at $43.93 for 7,500 gallons per month. When the fiscal 2025 rates take effect July 1, that will rise to $47.88.

“Any of those revenues would then help hold rates down to a much lower level going forward,” he said.

Erin Jordan of The Gazette contributed to this report

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