York City, located in Pennsylvania (USA), has identified potential bidders showing interest in leasing control of the city's sewer system and the waste-water treatment plant.

The York City Sewer asset is composed of over 520,000 linear feet of sewer lines located within the city. The sewer system is a critical component in the operations of the York City waste-water treatment plant. The system conveys the wastewater generated by sewer users in the city, and portions of seven other municipalities, to the plant for treatment. The Yor waste-water treatment plant is a 26 million gallon per day facility and discharges into the Codorus Creek river.

The city issued a request for proposals in October 2015 and reviewed them in January when four groups were selected to run the facilities. One is the company American Water, and then there are three joint ventures: 

• Severn Trent Services, National Development Council and Chester Engineers
• Suez Environment and KWP Capital
• Veolia North America, The York Water Co. and Public Finance Authority

The city will continue to own the sewer system and the waste-water treatment plant, but it is looking to contract one of these groups to manage them.

The group selected to lease the control of the plant from the city will be in charge of maintaining it, and will receive any revenue from it as well.

Doweary said.

"It’s them putting their best foot forward. Any lease would last the next 50 years. The companies' expressions of interest and initial proposals haven't included monetary details yet. The city currently owns and operates the system and facilities itself, leasing some use of its services to several surrounding municipalities. It's also been the recipient of costly repairs over the years and the city pumped $40 million into it a few years ago. They feel they can operate it more efficiently and effectively than we do. A company the city leases operations to would be able to raise rates, but would have to keep the increase within a certain percentage every year."

You can see Request For Proposal with the link below:

http://yorkcity.org/user-files/file/Wastewater%20System%20Concession%20RFP.pdf