City hopes to convince smaller plant will work

by Nathan Arneal
Published 4/10/24

The North Bend city council hopes a meeting this week between state officials and North Bend city engineers from JEO Consulting will save the city more than a million dollars.

As previously reported, the city of North Bend and JEO have settled on a plan to replace the city’s aging sewer plant with a new one that will cover about 15 acres and cost an estimated $9 million.

Two agencies that would potentially help North Bend fund the project, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy, told North Bend it needs a bigger plant that would cover 60 acres and cost at least $1 million more.

The type of treatment plant JEO and the city want to build would be among the first, if not the first of its kind in Nebraska.

This week JEO will meet with the funding agencies to try to convince them that the smaller, cheaper option would work just fine for North Bend.

“JEO is meeting with the state to explain to them the 15-acre lagoon we want will work in Nebraska,” city clerk Theresa Busse said. “The state doesn’t understand that it would work. They have them all over in Iowa.”

Until the size and scope of the plant needed is resolved, and prep work will be put on hold.

“The whole thing is dead in the water until we get that answered,” councilman Bart Bosco said.

Representatives from JEO will attend the April 16 city council meeting to discuss how the meeting with the funding agencies went and to discuss refurbishing a couple of sewage lift stations before the new plant is built.

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