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Sewer fund surplus may bring rate cut
By Pru Sowers
Banner Staff
PROVINCETOWN — If a number of financial projects come to pass, sewer users may see a 20- to 25-percent reduction in their rates beginning in November, according to wastewater facilitator John Goodrich.
Goodrich met with selectmen Monday night to report that a financial review of the wastewater enterprise fund (WWEF) by outside consultant Mark Abrahams showed a projected surplus of between $250,000 to $300,000 a year for fiscal year 2009 through FY 2012. If the financial assumptions made by Abrahams are confirmed, rate cuts are a likelihood, Goodrich said.
“The updated analysis indicates that the WWEF is now projected to show a sufficient surplus so that the board [of selectmen] will be able to consider a 20- to 25-percent rate reduction for the sewer system users starting with the off-peak billing period, which begins on Nov. 15, 2008,” he said.
“We were looking for a 14-percent [rate reduction]. To bring forward 20 to 25 percent is very exciting,” Selectman David Bedard said.
The actual amount of potential rate reduction cannot be finalized until the FY 2008 audit is completed around the end of August, Goodrich said. Any rate reduction would have to be approved by the water & sewer board, which would first hold a public hearing on the matter and forward its recommendations to selectmen.
“After five years of the highest user fees in the state, all of the users of the sewer system will finally be able to enjoy rate relief,” Goodrich said.
Provincetown sewer users currently pay a per-gallon charge of $.0185, approximately 50 percent higher than the average per-gallon charge in Massachusetts.
The wastewater team, after delivering the potential good news, immediately segued into a proposal to further expand the sewer system, which currently has 709 property owners signed up to connect. Despite assurances by DPW director David Guertin last April that there were no plans to proceed with a third phase of sewer expansion, Phase Three appears to be going full steam ahead.
Selectmen Monday approved $80,000 in consulting fees to be paid to Metcalf & Eddy, the wastewater engineering firm that designed Provincetown’s sewer system. The contract will cover planning services related to “continued optimization, mass loading and capacity engineering,” according to a packet of information submitted to selectmen on Monday. Specifically, Metcalf & Eddy will research how to increase volume at Provincetown’s wastewater treatment plant, which will be close to its capacity if two affordable housing projects — one at 90 Shank Painter Road and another proposed by developer Ted Malone on Race Point Road — come to fruition.
The $80,000 was tied to sewer rate relief, as were a new $20,000 contract with Goodrich and a separate $20,000 contract with Abrahams. The new contracts, along with another $35,000 paid to Metcalf & Eddy for additional work done under Phase Two, effectively uses up three-quarters of the $200,000 approved by voters during April Town Meeting for expansion of the municipal sewer system.
While Phase Two of the sewer expansion is largely complete, the $200,000 was explained as needed to “optimize” the system, meaning to determine if new requests for sewer connections — plus the engineering work required to put designated properties onto the sewer when their septic systems fail — were feasible.
Guertin said in April that if the Town Meeting article did not pass, all sewer facilities planning — including determining whether a Phase Three expansion to service a proposed affordable and market rate housing development on Race Point Road is viable — would come to an immediate halt. When he was asked how much of the $200,000 would be spent on researching the feasibility of a Phase Three sewer expansion, which several selectmen have said they were against, Guertin said that no Phase Three was planned.
“Phase Three is Phase Three and there has been no approval and no solicitation for Phase Three,” Guertin said at the time.
psowers@provincetownbanner.com
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Jul 17th, 2008