Foley City Council Votes to Send Wastewater to St. Cloud

FOLEY -- Foley is moving forward with a plan to send the city's wastewater to St. Cloud.  During Tuesday night's meeting, the city council voted four-to-one to install an 11-mile pipe along Highway 23 connecting the two cities.

The total cost of the project is estimated at over $19.4 million.

City Administrator Sarah Brunn says Foley is currently using a lagoon system to handle their wastewater, but they are at capacity right now and one of their lagoons is old and needs to be decommissioned.

Brunn says they are hoping to get some help paying for the new system from organizations like the Public Facilities Authority, Rural Development, and/or some federal or state grants.

If they are not able to get help paying for it, sewer rates will increase substantially for Foley residents.  Right now a typical home pays about $23 a month, if Foley uses a 20-year loan to pay for the upgrades, user fees would increase to about $98 a month.

If all goes well, Foley is expected to begin construction of the pipeline to St. Cloud in the spring of 2021 and have it operational by the fall of that year.

Once it's up and running St. Cloud will charge Foley a monthly fee based on the volume of wastewater used.