FILER, ID (KMVT) What's that new building that suddenly sprouted north of Filer? It's the city's new wastewater treatment plant.

Bud Compher, Filer Director of Public Works, says, "It's been running for about 45 days now. Every day you find something new to fix, it's just getting everything timed and working together, and it's really starting to work great."

Compher and Filer Mayor Bob Templeman visited wastewater treatment plants all over the Northwest to see what the operators loved and hated about their plants. That helped nail down what would work best in Filer, for the city and the people who live here.

Templeman says, "We'll probably continue to stay pretty flat for a lot of years. So our rates will be able to stay pretty close to the same they are now. We don't see any big increase coming for the next 5, 10, 15 years. We have a lot of capacity."

The plant was built so they can add more processing without having to add on to the building. Compher says the water comes into the plant dirty and goes out amazingly clear. He says there's plenty of room to serve future Filer residents, too.

Compher says, "Our plant just like it is now, we can double the size of the city and still not have to be adding on. So we're around 800, 900 houses now. We should be able to double that, and then some."

Dec. 20, 2011.