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Water board gears up for next meeting

By Meg Olson

Point Roberts water commissioners got a preview of the next informational meeting on a community sewer system, intended to answer some of the questions left dangling at the last meeting.

In their overview of the presentation scheduled for October 31 at the community center, district engineer Bob Bergstrom focused on where sewers would go, who would pay for them and how. “You could have an infinite number of permutations,” he said. “We wanted to keep it simple. There were two sides at the last meeting, those who want sewers and those who don’t. Between the two was a third option, for sewers in the commercial core.”

Bergstrom said they would focus their development of a sewer comprehensive plan on those options. The comprehensive plan update is being paid for with an 80 percent grant from the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service and was sparked by a proposal from the economic development committee’s infrastructure subcommittee, which applied for the grant on behalf of the district. The $52,000 review of sewer possibilities for the Point is expected to be complete by the end of the year.
The first option engineers will evaluate is to do nothing. Point Roberts would continue to be served by on-site sewage systems-septics for private homes and smaller commercial operations, and more elaborate private systems for larger developments. “Developers could do what they want to do, and are allowed or required to do, for their development. Even if it’s run by the district it’s still local service so other people don’t have to pay for it and don’t get service,” Bergstom said.

Option two would develop a sewer system to serve the business district along Tyee Drive and Gulf Road, larger developments and selected parcels on Rex Road, if they chose to sign on. The collection system would be pressurized and use grinder pumps at each point of service and waste would be treated at a central treatment plant.

As far as how much area on the Point would get sewers, the difference between the two options is small, since both include larger developments served by the district. Sewer-eligible land includes all property where state and local regulations allow building or sewers, which excludes wetlands, environmentally sensitive areas and areas zoned for five-acre parcels.
Option one would have 30 percent of sewer-eligible land in Point Roberts served by a combination of private systems. Under option two those systems would be replaced by a public system and small properties in the central business district would be added, which would increase coverage to 38 percent of sewer-eligible land. “It’s like butter on bread– a little smear more,” Bergstrom said.

Option three would see coverage balloon out, covering all the sewer-eligible land on the Point. There would be a central sewer plant, which could be built at one of several locations, and the collection system could be a conventional gravity system, a pressure system with grinders or a combination of both.

“There are all sorts of combinations we could examine but it wouldn’t get done by Christmas,” Bergstrom said. The upcoming meeting, scheduled for October 30 at the Benson Road firehall at 7 p.m., is intended to get community direction on which options bear examining. “The plan can recommend an option but it can include other options. That goes to the department of ecology but beyond the book you need to put in motion a funding plan and that takes some doing,” Bergstrom said.

At the last meeting, how the system will be paid came out on top of questions the community wanted answers for, and Bergstrom said they will do their best to come up with preliminary answers this time. “We have to beef up more on the grant and funding issues. We’re crunching the financial numbers as we speak and we’ve drafted a couple of people from Wenatchee up just to crunch numbers,” he said. Depending on which option is chosen for the system, the funding plan could include dollars from a number of sources. These could include a property tax levy, which would need to be approved by voters, revenue bonds authorized by district commissioners to be paid back through sewer revenues, or assessments against properties serviced in a local improvement district (LID) approved by property owners. “One mix might be doing the backbone on a property tax levy and then each area who wanted service in their neighborhood could form an LID,” Bergstrom said. .

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