by Judy Frank
posted August 27, 2008
The vote on whether to add a new $8 service fee to more than 24,000 customers’ monthly bills will come during the September meeting of the Hamilton County Water and Wastewater Treatment Authority, members learned Wednesday.
The meeting, which is open to the public, will begin at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 17, at Chester Frost Park.
Under the proposal, WWTA would impose the proposed monthly fee on all existing and new WWTA customers served by gravity sewers.
The resulting $46 million in revenues – raised over a 20-year period – would be used to fund an aggressive private service lateral program designed to reduce influx and infiltration problems throughout the WWTA system.
The program would feature systematic testing and repairs of the private service lateral lines that convey wastewater from WWTA customers’ homes or business properties to the main sewer line.
The laterals – which extend from the end of a structure’s internal plumbing to the connection with the WWTA sewer main – are owned by the customers.
The authority would pick up the entire cost of the testing and repairs, using revenues generated by the $8 monthly service fee to cover the expenses.
Work would begin on Signal Mountain, and then extend to other communities including East Ridge, Lookout Mountain and Red Bank.
The $8 fee, which would be imposed for a period of 20 years, would generate about $192,000 monthly or $2,304,000 per year.
Between now and Sept. 17, WWTA members will pore over proposed regulations for the private service lateral program, deciding whether they think changes should be made.
The regulations will be discussed at the WWTA variance and rules committee meeting on Thursday, Sept. 4, when all authority members will be able to suggest changes.
The committee will then make recommendations during the Sept. 17 meeting.
“The past few months have been difficult as the board has struggled with the best and most appropriate way to make the repairs needed without placing an undue financial strain on our customers,” WWTA chairman Henry Hoss said Wednesday. “We’ve taken significant steps to make sure that the WWTA’s sewer system meets present and future needs.”
Although the private service lateral program will begin on Signal Mountain, WWTA executive director Cleveland Grimes said, “Signal Mountain is representative of the many different issues which face the WWTA throughout its service area. This experience will prepare us for the various types of repairs and maintenance issues that will have to be made in other areas.”
But former state Rep. Arnold Stulce – who obtained special permission to speak to all authority members during their August meeting – said he believes the across-the-board $8 monthly fees are unfair.
When he learned that the proposal would be discussed during a recent public meeting in Soddy Daisy, he said, “I thought you were coming to get input from us.”
“But it turned out that you were coming to tell us what you were going to do and, quite frankly, I resent that,” he added.
Under state law, he said, sewer lines are the responsibility of the owners of the properties on which they are located and those private citizens are required to properly maintain those lines.
Many did so, he noted, and it is unfair to penalize them now by forcing them to help pay for the repair of the sewer lines of property owners who did not.
“I ask this board not to impose that penalty,” he said.
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