Garden City council approves higher water and sewer rates, plans brewery-specific fees

Garden City’s council adopted resolution 12-14-25 on Aug. 25 to amend the city’s billing policy and raise water and sewer rates, the council announced during a public hearing. City Controller Miss Slavy told the council the utility system “is designed as an enterprise,” meaning the city may charge customers the cost of providing service, and that the largest portion of the sewer increase is a pass-through from the City of Boise under a treatment contract.

Miss Slavy said Boise is developing connection fees and strength-based monthly sewer charges for businesses that affect treatment loads and that Garden City will meet with Boise and local breweries to set a comparable timeline and calculations. She told the council Garden City has seven breweries; she said Western Collective produces about 14,000 gallons of beer per month and that brewery production can raise a facility’s sewer-strength classification. Councilmember Jorgensen asked about timing; Miss Slavy said the city has a meeting with Boise scheduled the next day and will notify the council about outreach to breweries. The council voted to adopt the billing-policy amendment and set the effective date under resolution 12-14-25.

The discussion made clear two practical effects: (1) some rate increases reflect upstream treatment-cost pass-throughs from Boise, and (2) the city intends to apply connection and strength-rate calculations to certain commercial producers (breweries) so residential customers are not subsidizing high-strength dischargers. Specific implementation details and effective dates for brewery-related fees were not specified and will be reported after the city’s follow-up meeting with Boise.