Valley considers plan to run own sewer system

Most people don’t even think about it.

They clean their dishes, wash their faces and flush their toilets never considering where the wastewater goes.

Others, however, think of little else.

Transporting sewage away from homes and businesses, across town and to a treatment plant where it can be cleaned well enough to be dumped into the Spokane River isn’t a sexy job, but it’s an important one.

The Spokane Valley City Council is considering taking over the sewer collection system within its city limits. It’s also studying whether it’s feasible to build a $100 million wastewater treatment plant, a project Spokane County has been planning.

Currently, the county owns the sewer system in Spokane Valley and city residents pay the county to collect and treat their wastewater.

Proponents of a Spokane Valley sewer takeover say the city should control its own future. The city should collect the money residents and businesses pay to the county each month and build a fat reserve fund like the county has.

But Bruce Rawls, the county’s utilities director, said the sewer isn’t a profitable operation. Every penny the county collects goes back into the cost of operating and maintaining the system.

“There’s no line item in (the sewer budget) that says we need $1 million for the sheriff’s department,” he said. “(Sewer money) doesn’t go anywhere else.”

So what about the sewer reserve fund? The county has accumulated a $40 million pot, which is about the size of the city of Spokane Valley’s entire annual budget.

Rawls said that money is either earmarked for the future plant or constantly dipped into for the regular repairs and replacements that come with running a sewer system. Using that money for something other than sewers could cause customers’ rates to increase, because the maintenance money has to come from somewhere, he said.

“It’s not surplus money,” Rawls said. “Our reserves are actually a little low right now.”

Some proponents of city ownership have said that if the city owned the system, it could use sewer money to repair streets in neighborhoods where septic tanks are being replaced.

Spokane Valley Finance Director Ken Thompson has said the legality of doing that is subject to interpretation, and Rawls called doing so “inappropriate.”

What the city clearly could do to raise funds is apply a utility tax to the sewer. The city of Spokane, for example, charges customers a 17 percent utility tax on sewer bills.

Imposing a similar tax in conservative Spokane Valley, where voters turned down a relatively small property tax increase last week, could be a political nightmare.

As it considers assuming the sewer system, the city has several options. It could take over ownership of the system, but pay the county to operate it, assuming the county agrees to such an arrangement. It could own and operate the system itself and end the relationship with the county. Or it could try to take over the sewer system within its city limits, as well as the sewer lines of the unincorporated area around it.

Spokane Valley has asked the county to analyze what it would take for the city to own and operate the system. Rawls said it might take him three or four months to do that for those different scenarios.

He gave an early, rough estimate, though, of the additional number of people the city would have to employ to run the sewer system: about 27. That’s more than half of the total number of people employed by Spokane Valley now.

Then there’s the cost of building the new plant. Last spring, Thompson said Spokane Valley would need a “debt service reserve” of about $6 million to satisfy creditors who would loan the money to build the plant. Currently, Spokane Valley is more than $3 million in the hole from a loan it needed to cover its start-up costs. Moving $9 million in the other direction could take the new city years.

Thompson has said Spokane Valley, because it’s young and struggling to gain financial footing, might not get the low interest rate that the county could to build the plant. Again, that might mean higher rates for customers, he said.

The city also has to consider that if it assumes the system, it will have to pay for about one-fourth of the upgrade under way now at the Spokane Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, Rawls said. That’s where the city’s sewage is cleaned now.

Spokane Valley isn’t the only new Washington city with sewer on the mind.

Sewage in Sammamish, which incorporated in 1999, is collected by two separate sewer districts that operate in and outside the city limits. King County then treats the wastewater for Sammamish, as well as for most other cities within that county.

City Manager Ben Yacizi said Sammamish is considering merging the two districts and having the city collect the sewage. The county still would treat it.

“We’re looking for ways to improve service for our citizens,” he said. “We think there’ll be some economies of savings.”

Yacizi added that it’s in the spirit of Washington state’s Growth Management Act to eliminate some of the small taxing systems, allow cities to provide urban services and leave rural services up to counties.

Fourteen-year-old Federal Way attempted to assume the Lake Haven Utility District but backed off in response to public outcry and resistance from the district.

Bob Jean, city manager of University Place, said sewage is collected and treated by Pierce County, much as Spokane Valley’s sewer system is handled by Spokane County.

He previously worked as city manager of Newcastle, Wash., which has its own sewage collection system, connected to a King County treatment plant. He likes that model best.

“It gave the local government the direct relationship with the citizen, rather than having them have to deal with a countywide bureaucracy,” Jean said.

Jean said a city like Spokane Valley might save money by putting sewer services under one government entity instead of two. For example, why pay for both the city and the county’s attorneys to analyze sewer issues, when you could just pay for one? Jean extended his example to the 22 water districts that serve residents in Spokane Valley.

“So there are 22 people on call in case there’s a waterline break?” he asked. “Wouldn’t it be better to have one or two? How many breaks could there be?”

But while efficiencies of scale might save some dimes, putting the sewer system and the future plant into the hands of such a young city could end up costing more dollars. Rawls said he thinks customers’ rates will go up even if the county keeps the sewer system. The region might have to find new ways to discharge treated wastewater because the Spokane River’s pollution levels already are high.

Wayne Frost, who headed the chamber of commerce task force that urged the city to consider assumption, said there are good reasons to put the sewer system in Spokane Valley’s hands, though. Local control is one.

“If a company wishes to locate within the city, for example, you would have to have someone else’s approval (the county’s) outside your own government,” he said.

When the tough decisions come to pass, Spokane Valley resident Howard Herman wants his city – not Spokane County – in the driver’s seat.

“We’re the guys that are causing a new treatment plant to be built so we ought to be calling the shots,” he said. “We’re the big dog in the fight.”