FRONT PAGE

Water board agrees to wait on sewer system

By Meg Olson

The Point Roberts water district commissioners now have a freshly updated sewer comprehensive plan in hand, but it seems they intend to wait for someone else to make the move before taking further steps towards a sewer system for all or part of the Point.

“Right now we’re at option one. Do nothing,” said commissioner Art Wilkowski at an April 22 special meeting with engineers to review the plan. “If the logical step is to move on to option two, there needs to be an initiating step.”

Engineers Bob Bergstrom and Robin Nelson said they were recommending the second of three options as the most feasible next step on the road to sewers. “Do we serve a limited amount of the Point or do we serve it all?” Bergstrom asked. “The crux of it all was money.”

Under option two a pressure sewer system would serve the businesses along Tyee Drive and Gulf Road and include long legs to link up the golf course, Lily Point, the cannery and the marina. “The way we figured this, using a package of loans and grants, the local improvement district (LID) assessment charge for construction would be $160 a year per equivalent residential unit (ERU), with an operations and maintenance charge of $22 per month,” Bergstrom said.

Total cost to build the system under this option would be $11 million and fees were based on it serving 900 ERUs. However, under option three, which would build sewers to serve all developable land on the Point, the system would cost from 25 to 50 million dollars, a cost to be shared by 2,150 ERUs. Maintenance costs would also be higher for the larger system, which means higher rates. “They will be substantially more than $50 per month,” Nelson said, which would make the project ineligible for a number of grants.

“This is a planning report,” Bergstrom said of the updated comprehensive plan. “It could be like a Sears catalog in an outhouse or it could have some life.” He explained there were a number of ways to initiate a the next step ­ designing and engineering the actual system. These could include a petition from owners of half the property in a certain area to form an LID and share the cost, or a bond issue for design dollars put forward by commissioners and approved by voters. Another possibility was a developer extension, in which a developer would design and perhaps build the system, which the district would manage, and charge people to sign on.

Bergstrom also emphasized that having the plan did not compel the district to ever pursue a sewer system, nor did it limit commissioners to the system options the plan outlined. “We know there are all kinds of intermediate stages between nothing and everything,” Bergstrom said. “There has to be consensus in the community. One or two persons or property owners isn’t going to make it happen and you don’t have the administrative fiat to authorize millions in improvements. Either a developer has to build the system and hand you the keys, the community can come to you or you can initiate the process yourselves. All these ways involve massive community involvement.”

Bergstrom added that his impression from a public meeting held October 30 was that there was no community consensus on the subject of sewers. “A large residential component is having their needs met with the existing system. Then there are commercial or development areas that may need to have their needs met in a different way.”

Commission chairman Madeleine Anderson said the needs of larger developments would be an appropriate trigger for the project. “If the golf course came forward when they build condos that could be the impetus,” she said. District manager Dan Bourks said he was already working with golf course management on an on-site community system for the first phase of residential development at the golf course. The other large development on the Point, the marina, was under utilizing their current system and was therefore unlikely to invest in another. “Maybe 20 years from now they will be willing to move forward and they can join forces,” he suggested.

In a later interview golf course manager Mark Lundrigan said they may move forward with further residential developments within five years. “It would be nice to have central sewer at that time,” he said. However, he said the golf course would not take the lead on the project, and was not ready to commit to participating. “I think it’s a community project that needs sponsorship from the state or the county,” he said.

David Niles, representing the infrastructure group, under the umbrella of the Point Roberts Economic Development Committee, wasn’t waiting. Niles said he had already put the project on the WACERT list. The list, prioritized at the county and then state levels, determines a project’s eligibility for grant funding. It was through WACERT that Niles and other proponents got the initial grant funding for the comprehensive plan update. “I think we’ve accomplished quite a bit there and I think now other state and federal funding sources will look at the project in a different light,” he said. The application Niles submitted to WACERT is for $120,000 for a capital facilities plan, environmental review and initial LID assessments. “That was based on doing the whole Point,” he said.

Don Meikle questioned the appropriateness for a private group without public mandate to be soliciting funds for a public project. “It would seem to me it’s up to the water board,” he said. “We wanted to make sure the options were there,” Niles said.

Commissioners will discuss and possibly approve a final draft of the plan at their May 14 meeting. The approved plan will be submitted to the state department of health, which requires a current plan be in place for the district.

.

BACK TO TOP