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ELLSWORTH — The
city has two options for dealing with its aging,
deteriorating wastewater treatment plant: make
$10.5 million worth of upgrades or build a new
plant for $12.6 million to $14 million,
according to Woodard & Curran officials.
Ellsworth hired
the Bangor engineering firm last year to
undertake a comprehensive evaluation of the
plant. The firm presented its findings to the
City Council at a Jan. 12 workshop.
Increased user
fees would be used to help fund either option,
according to Michelle Beal, Ellsworth’s finance
director.
Project manager
Ron Hidu said he recommended Ellsworth build a
new plant even though his “bias going in was to
upgrade the existing facility.”
Benefits of a
new plant include freeing up to 500 acres of
waterfront land for future development, said
Hidu.
A new plant
would eliminate odors in the neighborhood
surrounding the existing plant and it would be
easier to construct a new plant than make
upgrades to the existing plant, he said.
However, it
could take Ellsworth a few years longer to fund
and build a new plant, Hidu said.
A new plant,
which would encompass about 15 acres of land,
could be built with room for future upgrades
when additional development in Ellsworth
warrants greater capacity, according to Hidu.
“You’re at about
65 percent of your license on an average day,”
said Hidu. “If you reach 80 percent, you have to
do a study of how to expand the plant.”
If Ellsworth
pursues a new plant, the Maine Department of
Environmental Protection might require the city
to install a storage tank near the existing
facility to handle stormwater overflow from the
plant’s “illegal bypass” into the Union River, Hidu said.
The illegal
bypass has been channeling untreated wastewater
into the Union River during storms and other
times of heavy flow into the system, prompting
the Maine Department of Marine Resources to
close the Union River
Bay to shellfish harvesting
indefinitely.
A consent
agreement from the DEP about the illegal bypass
and other violations will be finished in a few
weeks, said Hidu.
Ellsworth’s
wastewater treatment plant has other problems.
Issues include
the technology the plant uses, which is 30 years
old, Hidu said.
The plant has
single pieces of equipment that have broken
leaving no backup for the plant operation during
equipment repairs.
“A lot of the
violations have come from equipment breakdowns,”
said Hidu.
City Manager
Stephen Gunty questioned Hidu about the best
method for negotiating the consent agreement.
“Unfortunately,
you’re not bargaining from a position of
strength,” Hidu said. “I think you want to show
contrition and you want to show good faith.”
Brent Bridges,
senior vice president of Woodard & Curran, said,
the DEP “really wants action. That’s your
greatest leverage.”
The City Council
questioned Finance Director Beal about how the
city would fund the project.
Beal said she
would prepare a list of financing options.
“It’s going to
need to be creative,” said Beal.
Gunty said a
combination of fees, grants and long-term loans
or bonds would be used.
User fee
increases, connection fee increases and impact
fees are all possibilities, said Gunty.
New wastewater
superintendent Michael Harris suggested
Ellsworth consider “indirect discharge fees,”
for discharge coming into the system from sump
pumps and roof drains, for example.
Scaling the
connection fee to the proposed development is
another option. Ellsworth currently charges a
flat $350 to connect a house or a business.
However, Beal
said that Ellsworth user fee increases would be
likely even without upgrading or building a new
plant.
The last
increase was six years ago and expenses have
gone up considerably since, said Beal.
But, “we’re not
taking it lightly at all,” she said, adding that
Ellsworth has been surveying sewer rates in
other municipalities. |
