ISHPEMING — The city of Ishpeming will begin enforcing a long-standing ordinance to collect readyto-serve sewer charges, but it will not affect most residents.

Ishpeming City Council members voted unanimously at their regularly scheduled meeting on Wednesday to enforce the ordinance, which has been on the books for years, but not implemented.

The fee schedule provides for a minimum monthly sewer charge of $40.73 for the first 2,500 gallons of water per month; for all metered water consumption greater than 2,500 gallons per month, with an additional sewer charge of $16.29 per 1,000 gallons, according to Ishpeming finance director Grant Getschow.

Residents who live in their homes and receive a city utility bill will not be affected because they are already paying a minimum $40.73 for sewer per month, Getschow said.

“If you live in your home and you occupy that home or if you own a rental and that rental is occupied you’re not going to see any difference,” he said. “But in the application of this fee what we would be looking at is homes that are unoccupied or lots of some developed nature that have a connection to a sewer utility.”

Getschow explained why the ordinance requires that owners of unoccupied homes contribute to the ready-to-serve sewer charges.

“The minimum bill is there because the cost that makes up running the utility isn’t actually the water we purchase or in the case of sewer the water we treat. It’s the maintenance of the pipes in the ground, the lift stations, the monitoring and mobilization; all that work to deliver your clean water to you and remove your soiled water from your property exists regardless of if you run your faucet or not,” he said.

Getschow said it is important that Ishpeming collect these fees because the sewer treatment plant is in desperate need of costly upgrades.

“I say ‘need,’ I don’t say ‘want,'” he said.

Mayor Pat Scanlon agreed with the council members regarding collection of the fees.

“This is money that we should have been collecting all along and haven’t been. And to reduce it or waive it, whatever, would only hurt the taxpayers in general,” he said.