Wastewater Reclamation Authority History
The
Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (Public
Law 92-500) called for a national program to clean up the nation’s
waters by 1983. Section 208 of the law specified that particular
attention be given to area where water quality control was a major
problem. Accordingly, local governments in the Central Iowa Regional
Association of Local Governments (CIRALG) received funding from
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to conduct an Area wide
Waste Treatment Management Study, informally called the “208”
study. The 208 area encompassed 26 governmental jurisdiction covering
almost 800 square miles. This cooperative effort to define and
implement solutions resulted in the formation of the Des Moines
Integrated Community Area (ICA), twelve local units of government
and two sewer districts. The cities of Altoona, Ankeny, Bondurant,
Clive, Des Moines, Johnston, Pleasant Hill, West Des Moines and
Urbandale as well as Polk County and Warren County in addition
to the Urbandale Sanitary Sewer District and the Urbandale-Windsor
Heights Sanitary District are the parties to the ICA Agreement,
which was signed in 1979. The constituent communities, except
for the two sewer districts, were members of CIRALG and the CIRALG
Policy Committee. The ICA Agreement provided that the constituent
communities shall be the ICA Management Agency and shall be separate
and distinct from CIRALG.
The ICA Agreement provided the institutional
structure needed to implement the requirements of section 208
of Public Law 92-500. It described the duties and responsibilities
of each constituent community as well as the proportionate funding
for implementing the Des Moines Facilities Plan. The cost for
implementation of the Facilities Plan is paid on a proportional
basis according to the year 2005 population equivalent of each
community. Each constituent community pays the operation and maintenance
costs on a proportionate basis according to the annual proportional
wastewater flows contributed. May,1995 the ICA management agency
was renamed (WRA) Wastewater Reclamation Authority.
July 1, 2004 the Des Moines Metropolitan Wastewater
Reclamation Authority (WRA) finalized the amended and restated
agreement becoming a legal entity, including newly connecting
communities, organization of a board with budget, operation and
maintenance responsibilities, acquisition of existing facilities
and transfer of assets. Full information on the WRA agreement,
schedules of meetings for the WRA Board and Technical Committee
can be found on this web site.
WRA
Agreement - WRA
Board Meeting Schedule - Technical
Committee Meeting Schedule
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