Brian Mittge, The Chronicle, 1/13/2001
Both Chehalis and Centralia are required to build new plants within the next decade.
How much money will they spend?
Thirty million dollars for a sewage treatment plant in Centralia, built by 2005. Thirty million dollars for a similar plant in Chehalis, built by 2008.
Perhaps an obvious question is whether some of those millions could be saved if the cities worked together on a single facility.
Centralia, nearing the design phase for its Fords Prairie plant, is in a financial squeeze. It hopes that bringing Chehalis into the picture would lessen the cost of the plant for Centralia residents, and for the overall region.
Chehalis is unconvinced it would be cheaper to transport its waste to Centralia for processing, and is slowly moving ahead on plans for its own new plant, at an as yet undecided location.
At issue is the cost of transporting wastewater from Chehalis, and from as far away as Napavine, to Centralias proposed wastewater treatment plant on the outskirts of the city, on the edge of the Lewis-Thurston County line.
According to a 1999 joint engineering study done for the two cities, it would cost Chehalis nearly $25 million to transport its raw wastewater from its current location to a regional facility.
To Chehalis officials, no efficiencies from a regional plant could make that expense worthwhile.
"None of these cost savings would equal $25 million," said Jim Nichols, Chehalis public works director. "You can nickel and dime this thing to death, but nothing Ive seen balances out the conveyance issue."
The cost savings would come from building one larger regional plant to serve Centralia, Chehalis, Napavine, and the area south of Chehalis along Jackson Highway, known as Lewis County Sewer District 1.
In addition to saving millions by building one plant rather than two, the 1999 report also estimated an operational savings of $2 million from employee reductions.
Centralia Utilities Director Dick Southworth believes another big cost for building plants will come from environmental studies and the long permitting process.
"Unifying the plants would save on those costs too," he believes.
While acknowledging the costs of transporting up to 13 million gallons a day of wastewater, Southworth maintains that, if Chehalis were committed to a regional plant, that obstacle could be overcome.
"If you could get grant funding for conveyance, then the issue of regional almost becomes a simplistic ‘yes', its good from an economic standpoint," Southworth told The Chronicle earlier this week.
He added that state agencies would be more likely to give grants to regional plants that solve the problems of multiple groups, rather than to plants in individual cities.
Chehalis Nichols remained unconvinced.
"That's a nice thought. Its admirable that he's that optimistic... I've seen no commitment from DOE that if we went regional they would give us funding," Nichols said during a Thursday interview.
"We are responsible to the citizens of Chehalis. Hopes, maybes, were-going-to-tries that wouldn't be responsible to our citizens," he added. High hopes don't get the job done".
"We got a zero interest loan, and a lot of people said that wasn't going to happen," Southworth said in a separate interview.
Although Centralia officials believe both cities would be served by regionalization, Chehalis officials, from the mayor and council to the appointed public works officers, are swayed by only two things: numbers and dollars.
The 1999 study, which is the lone regional study prepared by engineering firms from both cities, said Chehalis would spend anywhere from $3 to $10 million more by joining Centralia.
"If the city of Centralia said they want to do it so bad that they'll pay to have our waste hauled, we'll say ‘Hey, well jump on board,'" vowed Chehalis City Councilor Bud Hatfield.
"'The ultimate position you have to take always is how' much is it going to cost the ratepayer'. I dont want to have another 3, 4 or 5 million added just to say we've done the warm fuzzy thing and joined in with regionalization," he said.
Regarding the engineering study, Southworth said Centralia would be willing to revisit the issues and to produce updated data.
"We'd be delighted to run numbers again to try to convince Chehalis To make it happen in the funding we have to have participation by all the parties. Wed have to take the lead in it, but in truth we all have to want to be part of it."
Brian Mittge covers municipal government for The Chronicle. He may be reached by e-mail at bmittge@chronline.com, or by telephoning 807-8237.
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