Ballots go out for sewer bond vote

The Flathead County Election Office will drop ballots in the mail Tuesday for Bigfork voters to decide on whether or not to approve an $8.1 million bond to replace the Village's wastewater treatment plant.

Ballots will be sent to registered voters in the Bigfork Water and Sewer District and are due back to the election office by July 27. At least 30 percent of registered voters must return their ballots for the vote to be valid.

If the bond is approved, that means there will be an estimated $71 a year per $100,00 taxable value for property owners in the district, regardless of whether they are hooked up to the district. The bond would be assessed over the course of 20 years. District manager Julie Spencer said it's important to note that this is on properties' "taxable value" not "market value."

The project needs to be completed whether the bond is approved or not, Spencer said. The current treatment system at the plant was constructed in 1986 with an anticipated 20-year life-expectancy and is showing significant aging. It also can't meet the new standards from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality for the district to maintain its permit. The standards relate to the fact that the district discharges its treated effluent into Flathead Lake and is one of the few districts in the state to discharge near that high quality of a water body, Spencer said.

The permit with the new standards, which Spencer got in the mail last week, requires much lower levels of nitrogen than the current plant can produce. They'll have to cut the nitrogen in the discharge nearly in half.

The permit goes into effect in August, but after negotiations with DEQ, Spencer has until Jan. 1, 2013 to comply. This gives time for construction of the new facility and about a year for the new treatment system to stabilize. After that date, if the district is not compliant, it will be fined $10,000 a day, Spencer said.

If the bond is not approved, the project would instead be funded through sharp increases in sewer bills — at least a $35 a month increase. That would be $420 a year on current rate payers' shoulders, Spencer said.

Overtime, more properties added to the district could help reduce costs either way.

As more properties get annexed into the district, those property owners would then also be paying assessments on their taxable values. Those additional properties could help defray the costs and pay off the bond sooner. The approximately $8,255 hook-up fee for properties already in the district won't go toward paying off the bond. That fee contributes to the infrastructure in the ground already to make the hook ups happen, Spencer said.

The most common question Spencer has received thus far has been about the magnitude of the cost at a time of economic recession. The estimated total cost of the project is roughly $9.6 million. The district has applied for and received grants of about $1.5 million to help reduce the amount of the bond.

"A lot of the cost has to do with the type of treatment we're required to get," Spencer said.

The 6,300-square-foot treatment facility will include a membrane filtration system, which will be the first one in the state. This form of treatment was chosen over others because it was one of the only options to meet the new standards and it fits the size of the district's site, Spencer said.

"It has one of the smallest footprints for the quality of treatment you get," Spencer said. "I don't know what other treatment would get that level (that we are required to have)."

Size is a particular concern because the district's roughly 1.3-acre property, located on Harbor Heights Road, has limited room for the building.

The new treatment facility will already be encroaching five feet into the current 20-foot setbacks along Harbor Heights Road, which has been approved by the Flathead County Board of Adjustment.

An additional factor that ups the cost is the fact that the district's facilities are located in a residential neighborhood, which means it can't have open basins outside because of the odors that can be associated with them.

The district also chose construction materials that were slightly more expensive. Concrete and blocks would be used rather than steel so that the facility would be more durable and last longer, Spencer said.

The current treatment facility, which uses a trickling system, will no longer be used once the new one comes online. But, the building will be refitted for basin storage of treated water for irrigation.

A public meeting will be held to address residents' questions at 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 7, at Bethany Lutheran Church in Bigfork.

To help inform people, Spencer is sending out a one-page explanation with June bills to ratepayers in the district.