City to begin accepting septic waste at treatment plant
Plant is now fully operational and has the capacity to treat hauled waste
An overhead shot of the city’s wastewater treatment plant.
– At last week’s Paso Robles City Council meeting, the council adopted an ordinance to amend portions of municipal code regarding hauled septic waste, and made a resolution setting tipping fees for receipt, treatment, and disposal of it.
Hauled waste is domestic septage removed from a septic tank, commercial wastewater pumped from a septic tank. All hauled waste generated in Paso Robles and the surrounding area is presently trucked out of the county for disposal, because there was previously no disposal options in San Luis Obispo County.
The city’s upgraded Wastewater Treatment Plant includes a state-of-the-art hauled waste receiving station. The upgraded treatment plant is now fully operational and has the capacity to receive and treat hauled waste. It includes a truck loading dock, a closed pipe system to empty the hauled waste into, and equipment to remove debris from the hauled waste before it is treated by the plant. A card-lock system automatically tracks the volume received from each hauler.
The new ordinance makes, “necessary and appropriate amendments to the city’s municipal code in order to reflect the new hauled waste receiving station,” as well as authorizes the city to begin receiving hauled waste, and will regulate waste haulers who desire to discharge hauled waste into the city’s facilities, according to the staff report.
The city installed the hauled waste receiving station with the intent of recovering the full cost of the system through fees. Costs include the capital and depreciation costs of the hauled waste receiving station, staffing required to operate and maintain the equipment, and costs for treatment and disposal of the hauled waste. These costs will amount to approximately $370,000 per year in Fiscal Year 16/17, increasing to $405,000 by Fiscal Year 19/20.
Based on a conservative projection of the volume of hauled waste the city will receive, the cost per gallon to receive, treat, and dispose hauled waste will be:
These fees will recover the costs of receiving, treating, and disposing the hauled waste. These fee amounts are greater than what local haulers pay elsewhere (e.g., the City of Santa Maria charges $0.09 per gallon), but the additional cost of disposal in Paso Robles will be offset by reduced transportation costs.
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