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The first five years of privatizing the Chisago Lakes Joint Sewage Treatment Commission holdings seem to be proving the originally contentious decision to go with Veolia was a good one.  Chisago City, Lindstrom, Wyoming, Stacy and Center City contracted with a national wastewater firm, Veolia, when maintenance, operations and personnel hurdles grew insurmountable to the elected officials on the commission.  Upon accepting the retirement notice of a longtime plant manager,  general consensus  was triggered to call in the professionals.

While there hasn’t been a total resolution to all the irritations of handing over the reins — commission members agreed last week to keep tackling what comes up as members discussed this next contract cycle.  

This experiment in using a private company for operations of multiple cities’ wastewater treatment systems has presented problems inherent in merging a public-run enterprise with a private company, Veolia.

Turnover on the commission is one unavoidable  issue. 

The contract requires sign-off by a group of elected officials who don’t necessarily remain in office.  The matter of the “automatic renewal” of the Veolia contract is a case in point.  

County Commissioner Marlys Dunne, county representative for the very small percentage of the budget borne by county taxpayers, said the contract needs to be re-written.  The company must have the responsibility to do the 120 day notification of any desired changes.

Commission attorney Sam Ketchum also commented he’d generally  advise against any “auto renewal” language, which is in the contract now.  He said he’d be willing to work with Veolia on “building in more procedure.”  

Bookkeeping and timing of bills and receipt of payments also has to be adjusted, so at year’s end, commission revenue and expenses are accounted for and will track with government fiscal deadlines.  

Veolia gets “made whole” when the cost projections don’t match the actual expenses for operating the plant and wastewater collection network.  The commission gets a “credit” towards its budget when Veolia goes over on certain estimates of line items.

Dunne was concerned the group was still seeing 2024 bills late into 2025.

Another operational conflict surfaced just this year when Veolia staff were using vehicles as “take home” transport.  Treatment commission members reported none of the cities they represent allow this.  The practice is not covered by insurance.  All agreed vehicle use must be clarified and better defined on the few exceptions,  in the contract.

There also have been “emergency” decisions made in the field by  workers which the commission members wished had been reviewed by city administrators first.  One incident involved a manhole cover paved over in Lindstrom that needed to be returned to daylight.

Commissioner Jeremy Dresel said the executive subcommittee needs to write a policy for full commission adoption, that gives guidance on what an emergency is and who decides to spend money on what. 

As it stands, the contract for 2026 was adopted unanimously.  

Veolia was signed on five years ago at about $1.2 million and the most recent actual budget was approximately $1.4 million.  Veolia has been transparent in keeping budget amounts fairly consistent, although chemicals (tariff-impacts) have been running more than preferred and are pencilled in for a six percent hike. 

Over the five years operations and maintenance costs have varied between $850,000 to $898,000.

As of 2025 Veolia also got the OK to reduce staffing by one fulltime equivalent person from 5 to 4, which will save an approximate $23,000 strictly on the personnel side.

Final numbers for 2025 are not available yet.  The audit services by Abdo public finance consultants was okayed to proceed, for $19,975. 

The costs are split amongst the member cities based on flow (use) of the system.

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