Saturday, April 10, 2004
By Dian McClurg dmcclurg@chronline.com
Two months ago, faced with the news that several of her utility rates could more than double in the next five years, Chehalis resident Susan Gonzales considered leading a boycott against the city's wastewater utility.
She said she'd rather install an outhouse on her front lawn than pay three times her normal wastewater bill.
"I won't stay," she said. "I would not encourage anybody to buy in town now." Panic among residents, business owners and elected officials in Chehalis has been the gut reaction to a rate study released by the city in February.
Because of a number of proposed capital improvement projects in the water, sewer and stormwater utilities, including a $42 million wastewater treatment plant, councilors will soon have to settle on higher rates for the city's utility customers.
Estimates range from 50 to 150 percent hikes in each of the three utilities.
The millions proposed for spending on a new treatment plant and key infrastructure in the two other utilities is almost certainly the largest amount of money the city has ever considered expending, said City Manager Dave Campbell.
This decision has been the topic of almost every city council meeting since February. It is a political nightmare for these elected officials, and a crisis as far as Chehalis residents are concerned. Attention seems to be focused mainly on the proposed wastewater treatment plant, since it represents the largest chunk of money.
No matter what councilors decide about utility rates and projects to approve, Chehalis will receive a spendy bill. The city will find some help from the state, but probably not as much as it would like.
The city has already spent $7 million to $8 million on the new sewer plant, and not one cubic yard of cement has been poured, Campbell said. The money has been used to buy land for the plant and a poplar plantation, where treated wastewater will be dumped in the dry season. Millions of this money has also gone toward paying the Longview firm Gibbs and Olson, Inc., for engineering work in preparing for construction.
In the few short weeks since panic swept the city with the release of the rate study, city councilors have squirmed under pressure, new proposals have come to the table and all sorts of people from the general Chehalis population to former city officials have vented their frustration with this onerous situation.
State agency takes the heat, offers balm The city's wastewater treatment plant is not meeting discharge regulations, and it hasn't for a long time, according to the Department of Ecology.
"It's at the end of its useful life, and been upgraded several times," said David Knight, environmental engineer for DOE.
In 1998, Chehalis signed a consent decree with the Department of Ecology agreeing, in essence, to pull its treated wastewater out of the Chehalis River during the driest parts of the year, when the already sluggish river becomes nearly stagnant between Chehalis and Centralia.
This agreement locked Chehalis into a pact. Officials agreed that the city would do what it could to meet state and federal clean-water regulations before 2008, or 2010 at the latest.
Since this agreement was made, Chehalis officials have heaped anger and blame on the state agency for what has clearly become a crisis for the city.
"This isn't something we as a city are doing to you," Councilor Terry Harris said in March. "This is something the Department of Ecology is forcing on you, and they don't care how we pay for it." The agency, however, understands this animosity on the part of Chehalis, said Kelly Susewind, section manager for the southwest regional office of DOE's water-quality office.
"I can understand it," he said. "I have some empathy for them." But he also said that society decides what clean water means, and Chehalis is not being picked on. It's being hit harder than some other cities simply because it is located in a sensitive reach of the river. Pe Ell, Grand Mound, Centralia and Onalaska have all had to build new plants to clean up what they dump into the Chehalis River, Susewind said.
The Department of Ecology is also where Chehalis will get, if they qualify, the majority of its grants or low-interest loans for the project. The city has qualified for hardship loans and grants, which means Chehalis is one vital step closer to receiving a good chunk of the money it needs to build a new plant.
The city has already, in recent years, received nearly $4 million in low-interest loans from the DOE for the poplar plantation and other facilities needs, according to Sandy Howard, spokesperson for the agency.
Dave Campbell, the city's manager, is a member of the state agency's financial assistance council for the water-quality program. He doesn't have any influence over DOE's decision to award funds, but he does have some inside information on how competitive the grants and loans programs are.
"It's very competitive," he said. "On a state-wide basis, they will have about $5.6 million to award to these kind of facility projects, and Chehalis is hoping to get up to $5 million. We'll have to have an awfully strong grant application to get that." He said, however, that he believes the city does have a strong application. Chehalis was at or near the top of the list last year, he said.
"To think that we'll get the entire $5 million this year seems like a real stretch, though," Campbell said. "We'll see." Chehalis has also applied for about $30 million in zero-interest loans from DOE. Campbell said this is about a third of the money the state has to offer in loans for facilities projects this year. More than $110 million was applied for this year around the state, he said.
In addition to these possibilities from DOE, Chehalis has also received an offer of $10 million in a less than 1 percent loan from the state's public works trust fund, but the city can only accept the money if it builds a new wastewater treatment plant, Campbell said.
Leaders reconsider regional plant In the late 1990s, Chehalis city councilors decided to solve their wastewater treatment problems with a new plant and a poplar plantation to discharge treated water to in the dry months. Based on several in-house and independent studies done at the time, elected officials determined that this option was less expensive even than joining Centralia in a regional plant.
Centralia, locked into the same decree as Chehalis with the Department of Ecology, has completed a new wastewater treatment plant for about $38 million near the Thurston County line in Fords Prairie. Their plant has the room, with 20 acres above the flood plain, to expand four times.
At peak capacity, the plant could treat wastewater for about 75,000 people, according to project manager Dave Reynolds. That's more than three times the present population of Centralia and Chehalis combined.
Expanding the facility from its present capacity to treat 10 million gallons of wastewater per day would be expensive, but Dick Southworth, director of Centralia's utilities department, believes the new plant will suit Centralia for 75 to 100 years.
With the project completed, the final costs laid out, Centralia officials have come back to the negotiations table with another offer for Chehalis. Their motivations, though not stated directly, have much to do with wanting to keep their own rates down and avoiding the effects of a downturn in the neighboring economy.
"The city of Centralia feels strongly that if rates go up dramatically in Chehalis, there will be a really negative affect on the economy of Chehalis," Southworth said. "And both cities are so closely knit that Centralia will suffer from that." Centralia's offer seems simple: Join us in a regional plant for less than a cent per gallon of wastewater, and we'll build all the infrastructure you'll need to convey waste to our new plant, Centralia has said.
Ears perked on the Chehalis City Council at that. And just a few weeks ago, councilors hired the same consultant who completed the rate study this winter to analyze Centralia's offer. Results from that study will not be ready until late May.
But Centralia can only handle 5 million gallons of Chehalis' sewage per day. During the dry months, this is just fine. During the rainy season, groundwater seeps into the system through leaks in Chehalis' ancient collection pipes, and the city has at least twice as much waste that needs to be treated.
Centralia's offer asks Chehalis to keep its old plant online to handle this excess waste in the winter — the same old plant that already doesn't meet state regulations.
And the cost of operating the wastewater utility isn't just about how much it takes to treat the waste. The city will have to add maintenance of collection lines and other such operations fees to Centralia's offer.
Without even the cost of paying for a new plant, the Chehalis city manager said it costs about $4,657 per day to operate the city's entire wastewater system with about nine full-time employees.
Councilors prepare for the big vote While they're waiting to hear back on the feasibility of going in with Centralia, Chehalis City Councilors have been meeting regularly to catch up on the history of capital improvement projects and the decision to build a new wastewater treatment plant.
Monday, following the regular city council meeting, elected officials and city employees will gather again in a workshop forum to discuss whether any of the capital improvement projects proposed for water, wastewater or stormwater utilities, totaling in the millions, can be postponed or eliminated from the list.
"The real problem is that there just isn't enough money on the plate (with these planned projects) to offset whatever we have to do for wastewater," Councilor Terry Harris said. "We might be able to save $10,000 here or there, which is a lot, but it's frustrating when you think of the millions in potential spending we're talking about for sewer treatment." Harris, who was elected into office just five months ago, said these meetings and workshops have been productive, however, in helping city councilors prepare for making a decision on the big question of what to do about wastewater treatment.
"We're not scientists, we're bean counters trying to make the right decision," he said. "No matter what we decide, some people will be unhappy." To feel ready for that decision, councilors have collected all sorts of data. Mayor Fred Rider acknowledged last week that he and the other councilors may be micro-managing the city's utility businesses, "but there's a reason," he said.
"I need to take a hard and fast look at these things to make sure we're doing the right thing," Rider said.
City workers, especially from the finances department and the public works office, have been asked to spend extra evening hours at these meetings, and time at work compiling background information for city councilors.
"It's a normal reaction to a tough situation, though," Campbell said. "I would have been surprised if a city council with a majority of new officials had taken a look at a rate study of that magnitude and said, 'Yep. Let's do it. What's the next thing.'" Campbell said he and other city employees understand why councilors are demanding such details as financial statements for each utility and hours of presentations on proposed capital improvement projects.
"It's not a simple or an easy topic," Campbell said. "It's emotional, so it's understandable that a lot of people would have a hard time accepting what needs to be done without getting a lot of information. And even then, it's hard." Tony Ketchum, mayor pro tem this year, has been on the city council for nine years. He said he is getting nearer to being prepared for making a decision, but the frustrations have been immense. And like Harris, he doesn't think pushing back other projects in water, wastewater or stormwater is necessarily the answer.
"Some of the things we're looking at now have been pushed back too far," he said. "At some point, you just can't keep pushing them back." And it's difficult for Ketchum to watch Chehalis citizens get their hackles up over the issue.
"It's really silly, but I wonder if people think that what we do doesn't affect us," Ketchum said. "The councilors live in Chehalis, and we aren't exempt." Daryl Lund, back on the council this year after 20 years of being out of politics, said he thinks the council isn't getting enough of the right kind of information to make a proper decision.
"Somebody on city staff needs to put his foot down and say, 'We need exact figures,'" he said. "And nobody's doing it." Predicament has roots in history The decision about how to handle Department of Ecology's demand to pull the city's treated wastewater from the Chehalis River was never an easy one. Ten years ago, it was the biggest decision elected officials on the council had to make.
"We were all trying to hard to solve the problem without putting undue economic hardship on the citizens," said Dave Zylstra, a former Chehalis mayor and city councilor who was in office when the decision was made to go forward with a new wastewater treatment plant.
The city had just spent million of dollars on fixing old leaky sewer pipes when the Department of Ecology came to city councilors, "And guess what? We were out of compliance again," Zylstra said.
"There was no easy answer," he said. "When you're constantly trying to fix whatever needs to be fixed, it's hard to keep up with that." Zylstra and others who had to make that tough decision as elected officials years ago have been disappointed recently, however, to see how local politics have entered into the problem of what to do about wastewater treatment.
"We need to all get together and get this thing solved and not take sides," Zylstra said.
Bud Hatfield, also a former Chehalis mayor and a member of the council when the consent decree with DOE was signed, said he is frustrated with occasional talk that he and his colleagues made a poor decision years ago when they agreed to go forward on a new plant.
"People have to look at all the facts," he said. "They gotta look at everything that happened. We talked for years about the fact that it was going to cost money to build whether we combined with Centralia or did our own plant." Hatfield didn't have any advice for new councilors faced with making the final decision on the plant, but he, Zylstra and other former Chehalis councilors are still Chehalis residents, and they await a decision that will affect their utility rates as eagerly as other Chehalis dwellers.
"I wish (present councilors) the best of luck," Hatfield said. "I pray every night that they come up with a solution that works because I don't want to pay more." Residents prepare for the worst As angry as Susan Gonzales and other Chehalis residents are about the possibility that their rates will at least double in the next few years, they have not revolted or boycotted the city sewer system.
But city council meetings have been packed with citizens in the last months, and several residents have formed a group known as the Chehalis Tea Party.
This group of six citizens has met twice with dozens of other Chehalis residents in the last two months. And they have invited city councilors, the Department of Ecology and city workers to a public forum at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Virgil R. Lee building near Chehalis' Recreation Park.
What the Chehalis Tea Party, and indeed other residents in Chehalis, want is an open discussion of the need for these high rate increases. And they want to be sure their elected officials know their displeasure at the idea of the rates proposed.
Echoing Gonzales, other residents have time and again since February stated that if water, wastewater and stormwater rates in Chehalis do increase by the proposed 50 to 150 percent, Chehalis could become a ghost town.
"I don't want to move, but we will," long-time resident Allan Helsten said earlier this week. He and his wife have lived in Chehalis for 31 years.
Dian McClurg covers city government for Centralia and Chehalis, and health issues for The Chronicle. She may be reached at 807-8239, or by e-mail at dmcclurg@chronline.com.
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