Crunch time arrives tomorrow for the 13 Kiski Valley Water Pollution Control Authority communities and some could feel it more than others.
The authority is expected to discuss and decide on rate increases customers will pay to cover the $32 million bond issue need to upgrade the authority's treatment plant.
Authority manager Bob Kossak said the board, made up of a representative from each of the communities, will go one of two ways.
"The one is a flat increase across the board for all customers, and the other option is based on excess flow," he said. "Each community would have a different rate based on the excess flow that we receive from them during wet weather events."
In communities where the storm sewers and sanitary sewers have not been separated, rain water swells the flow of water to the plant. If the rain is heavy enough, the flows can overwhelm the treatment plant and result in raw sewage bypassing the plant and flowing into the Kiski River. The state and federal governments are cracking down on municipalities and treatment plants to prevent that from happening and polluting streams and rivers.
Of the authority's 13 communities, 11 have acted or are acting to prevent excess flows to the plant. The two communities contributing the bulk of the excess flows are Vandergrift, which has done no work on its sewage system despite being warned since the mid-1990s, and Leechburg, which has done work on about a third of its system, according to Kossak.
If the expense is covered by a flat rate, each resident in a community serviced by the authority would see their bills increase by a $22.89 per quarter or about $7.63 per month.
Under the flow rate plan, Leechburg residents would be hit with an additional $53.67 per quarter or $17.89 per month. Vandergrift residents would see their sewage bills rise by $44.94 per quarter or $14.98 per month.
Conversely, residents in Washington Township would only see their bill increase by $5.07 per quarter or $1.69 per month under the flow rate plan.
Kossak said he is making no recommendation on the financing options.
"I'm really trying to play Switzerland with this one," he said. "What I am doing is presenting the two options they asked for. It's pretty much a policy decision by the board."
"It's going to be a real close vote either way," Kossak added. "It could go 7-6 with either option."
In favor of flat rate
Leechburg Council President Tony Defillippi and Brian Carricato, Vandergrift Council president, believe the flat rate is the fairest.
"The original plan said that every municipality would be billed equally, and I think that would be the best way," Defillippi said.
"Those communities all got help from the federal government, the state government or the county government," he said of the communities that have separated systems. "We got help from nobody. We did it all ourselves. Right now, Leechburg Borough is paying $12,000 a month to retire that debt, and that's a lot for a small community to pay."
"Vandergrift is a 100-plus-year-old community," Carricato said, adding that the sewer system is just as old and has more problems because of that.
"Allegheny Township continues to grow every year," he said. "As these developments come in, they are automatically putting in a separated system. These are the communities that are getting bigger; Vandergrift is getting smaller."
Going with the flow
Richard Gardner, chairman of the Washington Township supervisors, thinks allocating the costs based on the flow rates is the only fair way to handle the issue.
"We contribute zero to the problem," he said. "Right now, 70 percent of the problems they are having is because of the wet weather flow, and we feel that those communities who are responsible for the 70 percent should pay for it."
"Currently, our bills are higher because we have done the work to avoid the problems," Gardner said.
He said if it were not for the wet weather flows, the plant would be able to handle only sanitary flows from its members and there would be no need for the project.
Gardner said Washington Township has spent about $25 million in doing five sewage projects and about $8 million came from government grants received only recently through the federal stimulus bill. The rest was paid by township residents.
"We're playing by the same state rules they have to play by," Gardner said of Leechburg and Vandergrift. "We've done everything we were required to do to make sure we were not contributing to the problem. The people who ignored this, who stuck their heads in the sand, now they are getting nailed."
"They (authority) spent a lot of money determining where the problem is coming from and if you are not going to do anything about it, why do the study?" he said.
Additional Information:Coming up
Who: Kiski Valley Water Pollution Control Authority
What: Public meeting on financing for renovation/expansion of the sewage treatment plant
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Conference room at treatment plant, 1361 School Road, Allegheny Township.
