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Ten grand for sewers with a population of 10,000?

By Meg Olson

Visions of Point Roberts when a community sewer system is both built and paid for etched the line between the for and against sewer camps as engineers unveiled initial cost projections. According to water district engineers, a conventional sewer for the whole Point would cost a single family home just under $10,000 in capital costs, or $80 a month over 20 years when bundled with operating costs. However, that figure is based on a sewer-stimulated development boom that would triple the number of equivalent residential units (ERUs) and push the local population to 10,000.

“It’s a chicken and egg thing,” said water district engineer Bob Bergstrom at an October 30 public meeting. “If we don’t have a sewer system then you won’t have that kind of growth.”

Of the three options Bergstrom and colleagues evaluated the first was to do nothing. “It doesn’t mean nothing happens, but large developments would have localized systems that would not impact the rest of the community,” Bergstrom said. The second option was a system serving large developments and the business district on Gulf Road and Tyee Drive. We’ve also included a portion of Rex Road but that’s really the only residential area this option would serve,” Bergstrom said.

The final option was a system for the whole Point. Under that option, most of the middle of Point Roberts, zoned as rural five acre parcels, would not have sewers in conformance with the county zoning rules. Sewers could also not be extended into wetlands.

A pressure system would be less expensive to build but cost more to maintain than a conventional gravity system and Bergstrom said they made cost projections for both.

Any system will need a treatment plant, unless an arrangement could be made to send waste to Canada for treatment. “They said no,” engineer Dave Nitchals said. District manager Dan Bourks said Delta council members had voted against considering taking Point Roberts’ wastewater. “They said they didn’t have the capacity,” he said.

The five locations being evaluated for a treatment plant include three near the marina, one just south of the Benson Road and Mill Road intersection and one near the dump on Johnson Road. Nitchals said the five-acre parcel purchased by the water district in the 1990s as a future treatment plant location was not an option, being 90 percent wetland. “It’s never easy to place a treatment plant,” he said. “Is there land available at a reasonable cost, at a technically appropriate location, where people don’t mind having it?”

“Will it smell?” asked an audience member. “All treatment plants smell,” Nitchals answered. “Usually it’s confined to the headworks and there are ways to mitigate it.”

Nitchals said they would evaluate two treatment methods, both of which can release disinfected, clear water, clean enough for use in irrigation. “The golf course can only use so much and only in the summer,” he said. “As the area grows we will need more and more land for disposal.” He said an outfall would probably need to be considered as the system grew. Sludge from the plant would be dried and sold as fertilizer.

Cost estimates range from $11.2 million for a pressure main sewer serving the central business district to $53 million for a conventional gravity sewer for the whole Point, including everything from design and archaeological investigation to laying pipes. Financial analyst Ann Eppler said building the business district system would cost $7,500 for each of the 1,500 ERUs in the area.

Capital costs for a community-wide sewer would be $8,500 per ERU for a pressure system or $9,800 for a conventional system. “These costs assume complete build-out so every lot would have to pay,” she said. There would also be monthly fees for operation and maintenance: $30 a month for the business district system, $17 per month for the pressure system on the whole Point and $10 for the conventional system.

“There are funding sources available at both the state and federal level,” he said, describing several grant or low interest loan opportunities. One is the federal Rural Utilities Service that, through grants and loans helps small communities build cost effective utilities. “Their goal is to control costs to consumers based on the median income of your community,” Bergstrom said.

The Point Roberts water district is also a sewer district and is legally entitled to issue bonds, assess properties in local improvement districts (LIDs) or impose a property tax levy to pay for the capital costs. While some members of the audience were concerned a voter approved tax-increase would disenfranchise Canadian property owners, others thought the LID process favored large developers. “Does it mean someone who owns five acres holds more weight than someone who owns just a lot?” one participant asked. “I believe so,” Bergstrom answered. Which combination of these mechanisms they use will be up to commissioners if they decide to pursue a sewer funding package, Bergstrom said.

Using a 20-year repayment term for the system capital costs and assuming no grants were secured, Eppler said the property owners hooked up to the system would pay $85 a month for the central business district system. For a community–wide sewer, property owners would pay $78 a month for the pressure system or $81 per month for the gravity system.

Audience members had little to say about the costs of sewers and remained divided along lifestyle lines. Sue Johnson felt the development boom that could come after sewers would do more harm than good. “If there are 10,000 people in Point Roberts who’d want to live here?” she asked. “I wouldn’t.” As of the 2000 census, the Point Roberts population was 1,308.

“I know everybody’s not here for their pocketbook and their own interests,” said Ann Christi. “We want to protect the environment for our children and our future.” She and others suggested sewers were needed to stop pollution from leaking septics. John Lesow asked what evidence there was to substantiate claims of leaking septics. Chris Chessom from the county health department said 21 failed septics were reported to them in the last five years, and all had been either repaired, replaced, or taken out of use. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t more,” he said. “If there are more as soon as they’re reported to us we’ll make sure they’re repaired.”.

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