The Austin City Council voted Monday to spend $9,057 to join two legal actions challenging the way wastewater treatment standards are imposed in cities.

The Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities (CGMC) is leading the legal challenges because it claims the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) wants specific results, but won’t tell cities how much it’s going to cost or where the money will come from to fund the upgrades.

City officials have long discussed upcoming concerns the city is facing, chiefly a potential for $20 million in upgrades to the Austin Wastewater Treatment Facility. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency enacted stricter water standards a few years ago, which would hold cities responsible for managing their phosphate levels, among other things. Yet several cities and the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities are pushing back against the new MPCA rules and asked legislators to revoke the standards as lawmakers hadn’t approved the changes.

Mayor Tom Stiehm has said that instead of planning the new rules out, the MPCA simply dropped it in their laps.

“We plan things and we know what it’s going to cost to put roads in, we know what it’s going to cost to do an upgrade on a building,” Stiehm said. “We try to have as few as surprises as possible. And this gets dropped in your lap, possible $10 million bill. It’s not the way we do things. It’s poor planning and it forces poor management on us.”

City Administrator Craig Clark said Austin will be one of the first communities to get squared against the new rules, so if they aren’t deemed successful, the city will have spent unnecessary money.

Stiehm agreed and argued the MPCA needs to let cities know ahead of upgrades so they can try to get funding.

“The sewage treatment plant is the biggest investment in the city, so we don’t want people messing with it,” Stiehm said. “Anytime we do any project [at the wastewater treatment plant] it’s multiple millions of dollars and some of that is just small baby steps, but it comes with a big price tag.”

Stiehm argued the MPCA rules would be a quick-fix on something and they would possibly have to redo the upgrades after a number of years.

“We need a long-term fix and I think we’re being offered a short-term fix,” Stiehm said. “That’s the problem. We want something that’s going to be long, sustainable, affordable, reasonable and something that doesn’t break the bank.”