Communities across Minnesota beg lawmakers to fund infrastructure this spring

There's too much radium in one of Elysian's two wells. A nature center building in Richfield isn't big enough to handle the traffic it gets. State transportation officials want $800 million to fund high-priority bridge projects across Minnesota.

Faced with hundreds of projects that cost billions of dollars, cities, counties and state agencies are pleading with the Legislature to pass infrastructure funding this spring to deal with the growing backlog of public works issues.

There are decaying rural roads and metro bridges and dozens of water infrastructure projects across the state. Brooklyn Park and North Mankato want new rec centers, and Bloomington and Edina say they need new public health buildings.

Hennepin County has several big-ticket items on its list: $50 million for an anaerobic digestion plant in Brooklyn Park to keep up with the metro's organics recycling needs, as well as $23.4 million to fix the Hennepin Avenue Bridge, $200 million for the county's Blue Line light rail transit extension and more than $10 million for a homeless shelter to help address ongoing health and safety issues.

Local officials argue that all these projects are necessary now and to prevent issues in the future. But lawmakers can't fund them all this year.

"Everybody looks in there to see, 'What did I get? What did I not get?' And then you move forward," Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Lunde said.

Lawmakers have traditionally passed large bonding bills — so-called because Minnesota borrows money to pay for public works projects — in even-numbered years, with smaller bills in odd-numbered years. But no bonding bill has passed since 2020, as last year legislators deadlocked on a roughly $1.4 billion bonding bill.

Senate Republicans rejected a similar plan totaling $1.9 billion last month, arguing that lawmakers needed to address tax cuts first in light of Minnesota's $17.5 billion estimated budget surplus.

Under state law, bonding bills require 60% of the Minnesota House and Senate's approval, which has become increasingly difficult to reach over the past decade. The DFL-controlled Legislature is considering using $2.3 billion of the state surplus to fund a cash-only infrastructure bill, which could pass by simple majority.

Meanwhile, cities and counties across the state are desperate as years of scuttled bills and not enough funding have delayed projects and infrastructure has fallen into disrepair.

Potentially polluting a river

In Duluth, the "catastrophic" failure of a crucial piece of cleaning equipment has the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District asking the state for $17.5 million.

The sanitary district says without full-scale repairs, the sewage treatment facility risks polluting the St. Louis River and Lake Superior, the waterways it was created by state law to clean and protect 50 years ago.

The district, which covers 530 square miles and 16 communities, uses four 160-foot-wide, 2 million-gallon tanks called clarifiers that separate solids from wastewater before moving the water on to the next stage of treatment.

An enormous steel pipe in the center of a clarifier collapsed last fall, rendering the entire clarifier useless. The facility can function with just three clarifiers, but it was found upon inspection that all four have the same problem.

"There are no alternatives," said Marianne Bohren, the district's executive director.

In southeast Minnesota, four communities face similar sewer issues. The cities of Goodhue, Pine Island, Wanamingo and Zumbrota seek $47 million to band together and build a $90 million regional wastewater treatment plant — roughly the cost of building four new plants. But the cities would save about $500,000 a year in operation costs.

Dubbed the North Zumbro Sanitary Sewer District, the new plant would replace smaller facilities built from 60 to 80 years ago and facing never-ending maintenance.

In Wanamingo, officials are afraid to pull out rags that covered leaks in the metal parts of their sewage tanks. Wanamingo and Pine Island's plants are in flood plains and have dealt with flooding in recent years. All four plants need to be replaced at some point over the next decade or so.

Goodhue's plant is arguably the worst off. Decades of use and sewage fumes are corroding key equipment pieces, while the plant itself is exceeding its allowed nitrate and chloride levels.

Goodhue must come up with a timeline to get back into compliance. If the area's proposed sewer district doesn't receive funding this session, Goodhue will likely have to go on its own — either with its own new plant or even an agreement for Zumbrota to take over wastewater treatment if all else fails.

"There's no way we can upgrade this plant to modern standards," Goodhue Public Works Director Jason Mandelow said last Wednesday, just minutes after raking out baby wipes and paper towels by hand from a holding tank.

The four cities serve about 10,000 residents who would see their monthly sewer fees increase about $40 to $60 on average if lawmakers fund the project. If they don't, residents could see increases of up to $250 a month under the worst-case scenario.

Slime in drinking water

In Wright County, the city of South Haven about 20 miles south of St. Cloud seeks $5.6 million in drinking water improvements by replacing cast iron water mains throughout town.

"Our drinking water has bacterial slime and mold growth. It looks nasty," said Melissa Stenson, city clerk of South Haven.

Crews found the contamination last fall while working on a project to replace the city's water tower, which had lead paint on the inside and outside. The city started chlorinating the water so it's safe to drink, Stenson said, and worked to obtain about half of the project's $10.7 million cost through federal grants.

Stenson, who testified in front of the House and Senate, said lawmakers need to make it happen this year because the city won't be able to increase taxes or assess residents to foot the bill.

"They couldn't afford it," she said. "Being the population we're at, we would not be able to put new water mains in and have clean water for our residents without the bonding bill."

Minnesota Management and Budget officials received almost 400 requests totaling about $6 billion from across the state in 2022, with even more requests coming before lawmakers this year. A majority of projects that came before lawmakers last year have increased in cost due to inflation and ongoing construction material shortages.

Lawmakers say they feel confident a cash bill will pass this session, but they're less optimistic about the bonding bill held over from 2022. House Capital Investment Chair Fue Lee said he still sees room to make a deal with Republicans on bonding, but Senate Capital Investment Chair Sandy Pappas differs.

Pappas said last week she believes a cash bill will likely contain most, if not all, of the projects in the $1.9 billion bonding proposal. Lee said House DFLers are considering all projects, including new ones proposed this year.

Not all will make it. "We hear all this positive feedback," Pine Island City Administrator Elizabeth Howard said, "and yet we're trying to find our niche in this politics game."

Staff writers Jana Hollingsworth and Jenny Berg contributed to this report.