WWTA
At its regular monthly meeting last week, the Hamilton County Water and Waster Water Treatment Authority voted to implement an $8.00 monthly fee to fund the new PSLP (Private Service Lateral Program) as well as a 6% increase in sewer rates.
You may recall that the PSLP is designed to address the serious I&I (inflow and infiltration) problems during rain events throughout the WWTA system. While Signal Mountain receives much of the bad press for I&I issues, thanks to our well-publicized moratorium, communities such as Red Bank, East Ridge and Lookout Mountain have almost twice the I&I problem that we have on Signal. But, to overcome the moratorium and allow new connections to our sewer system, all prviate service laterals (lines) need to be inspected and repaired if problems are found.
I believe that TDEC (Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation) may consider an early termination of the moratorium because of the aggressive PSLP plan enacted by WWTA. This is good news for our community, thanks to a reasonably affordable plan to quickly address the I&I issues which result in bypasses at our sewage treatment plant. I understand the argument that one should not have to pay if they have no problems; however, the overall problem is so significant (and quite expensive for an individual homeowner if repairs are necessary) that an aggressive measure such as the PSLP is necessary. Accordingly, I cast my vote in favor of the PSLP rule revision.
As to the 6% general rate increase, I cast my vote against the measure. All WWTA board members learned of the proposal on the morning of the regular meeting. WWTA staff called an informational meeting on two to three hours notice the day prior, but most members were unable to attend. I did attend and found that very little justification was provided and no cost-cutting measures were proposed or discussed. To be fair, the proposed budget for this fiscal year produced a deficit of over $304,000, largely due to little growth in revenues and significantly higher personnel expenses as a result of a full, rather than partial, pass-through of wages and benefits from Hamilton County to WWTA for its employees. The increase may have been a bit more palatable had WWTA staff provided more information (and the time to digest it) and reasonable notice to the rate-paying public.
