Consent Item 4h
STAFF REPORT
City Council Consent Item
DATE: July 1, 2024
TO: Honorable Mayor and Council Members
FROM: Brendan Byrd, Public Works Director/City Engineer SUBJECT: Approve a Special Wastewater Agreement with Eel River Brewery and Authorize the City Manager to Execute
STAFF RECOMMENDATION:
Approve the Special Wastewater Agreement with Eel River Brewery and authorize the City Manager to execute the agreement.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
As the Council is aware, in early 2024 Eel River Brewery brought their brewing facility back to the City of Fortuna from Scotia. Since returning, City staff have worked with the brewery to determine how their wastewater service should be billed, and what the strength of their combined brewing waste would be. After several months of laboratory testing by the City’s Lab Director, it has become evident that the brewery should be switched from their current heavy commercial wastewater customer classification to a Special Agreement. Under a special agreement, the brewery’s wastewater bill would reflect the results of laboratory testing of the waste strength, specially the measurement of the effluents Total Suspended Solids (TSS), and Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD). The primary driver behind this recommendation is that the brewery does a number of internal treatment processes that effectively reduce the waste load of their brewery effluent, and billing through the Special Agreement category of the City’s wastewater fee schedule would better capture the additional effort the brewery is putting in to managing their waste stream.
With this in mind, Public Works staff and the City Attorney drafted the attached Draft Special Wastewater Agreement. The agreement has also been reviewed and accepted by the brewery’s ownership. Under this agreement, the City would perform regular wastewater strength testing and inspections that would be used to calculate their monthly bill. In addition, staff worked with the brewery to determine how much of their potable water use translates into beer production (and not wastewater), and this agreement captures that amount as a standard number (17% of total water used) which will be deducted from the total billed wastewater flow (similar to a deduct meter for irrigation).
Staff recommend that the Council approve the agreement. If approved, the agreement would be immediately executed and the billing under the special agreement would take effect for their July billing cycle.
RECOMMENDED COUNCIL ACTION:
Staff recommends that the Council approve the agreement and authorize the City Manager to execute the agreement; By Consent Agenda Vote.
ATTACHMENTS:
A. Draft Special Wastewater Agreement with Eel River Brewery