WLSSD Board Approves 2016 Budget

Duluth, MN –  Western Lake Superior Sanitary District’s (WLSSD) Board of Directors approved its 2016 operating and capital budgets at its regular Board meeting this evening. Overall, rates for wastewater services will increase by a modest 1.1% in 2016. Solid waste management fees and rates for solid waste services will remain unchanged.

“We’ve continued to gain efficiencies and contain costs in our operations, enabling us to minimize rate increases over the past five years,” said Marianne Bohren, WLSSD Executive Director. “Our 2016 budget reflects a careful balance between maintaining reasonable rates, improving reliability, and ensuring that both solid waste and wastewater rates remain affordable to local residents and the 17 communities and 4 major industries we serve. Most importantly, we’ve accomplished these efficiencies without reducing services or compromising the environmental performance of our facilities.”

WLSSD’s capital improvement budget, also approved at the meeting, focuses primarily on rehabilitation and reliability projects in both the wastewater treatment plant and wastewater collection system.

Western Lake Superior Sanitary District provides award-winning wastewater and solid waste services within a 530 square mile service area and is a nationally recognized leader in pollution prevention. Governed by a nine-member citizen board, WLSSD is a special purpose subdivision of the State of Minnesota. Its legislative boundaries include the cities of Duluth, Cloquet, Carlton, Scanlon, Wrenshall, Hermantown, Proctor, and Thomson; and the rural townships of Silver Brook, Thomson, Twin Lakes, Canosia, Duluth, Grand Lake, Lakewood, Midway, Rice Lake, and Solway.
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NEWS RELEASE
For immediate release: 7:00 p.m., Monday, September 28, 2015
Contact: Marianne Bohren, Executive Director,
(218) 740-4805
Karen L. Anderson, Director of Community Relations
(218) 740-4776