Spokane County loses sewer ruling

Spokane County residents who live in mobile home parks don’t have to pay sewer construction costs when their neighbors do, a court has ruled.

The decision shifts hundreds of thousands of dollars in construction costs to other Spokane County residents until failing septic systems force mobile home parks to connect to the county sewer system.

The Washington state Court of Appeals ruled last Thursday that a law giving special treatment to mobile home parks leaves no room for the county to apply its “capital facilities rate” to them as it does other property owners.

The so-called CFR is based on a variety of costs related to sewer construction. It is multiplied by water use to determine a bill.

County officials contend the once-only charge is for the benefit of sewer availability even if property owners don’t immediately hook up. They say it pays for treatment capacity, not actual sewage service.

The fee may be paid over 20 years, with interest.

County officials convinced Colville-based Superior Court Judge Al Nielson that the CFR isn’t a prohibited charge for “available but unused sewer service.”

Rather, county officials argued, the CFR was a regulatory fee to mitigate the 143-unit mobile home park’s pollution of the aquifer that provides most of the drinking water in Spokane County.

Nielson granted summary judgment to the county when the Pinecroft Mobile Home Park in Spokane Valley sued to avoid a $253,782 CFR bill the county imposed in 2006.

The Court of Appeals instead granted summary judgment to Pinecroft.

A recalculation had reduced Pinecroft’s bill 38 percent from the $409,860 the county assessed in 2004, but the park’s owner – Parrell-Sisters MHC – insisted it didn’t have to pay anything until it hooked up to the sewer system.

The reduction reflected a county decision not to collect a “general facilities” charge, which had been a component of the CFR, until mobile home parks connected to the sewer system.

Pinecroft cited the state law that prohibits local governments “from requiring existing mobile home parks to pay a sewer service availability charge, standby charge, consumption charge, or any other similar types of charges associated with available but unused sewer service.”

A three-judge Court of Appeals panel in Spokane found that septic tanks contribute 60 percent of the contamination, typically health-threatening nitrates, in the aquifer.

Even so, the judges said the law exempting mobile home parks from sewer hookups and charges is so clear that there can be no other interpretation.

“All similar charges for unused sewer service for mobile home parks are plainly prohibited,” the court wrote. “The language is broad and nonexclusive.”

The judges – Teresa Kulik, John Schultheis and Stephen Brown – found the county’s arguments to the contrary “unpersuasive.”

Spokane County Utilities Director Bruce Rawls said county officials were “disappointed” and would consider asking the state Supreme Court to review the ruling.

Rawls said he and his staff hadn’t yet calculated the effect of last week’s ruling, which will apply to other mobile home parks, but “we think it’s a lot of money.”

“We don’t know whether this is going to cause a financing shortfall or not,” Rawls added.

He said Pinecroft is one of the larger of perhaps 10 to 20 mobile home parks in areas served by the county sewer system. Most mobile home parks have paid the CFR charge, and they may now demand refunds.

Rawls said some recent billing notices generated letters in which mobile home park lawyers argued the county should have waited for last week’s decision in the Pinecroft litigation.

Rawls recalled facing a gantlet of local legislators when he unsuccessfully argued against the mobile home park exemption a number of years ago in Olympia.

He said supporters of the law included the late Sen. Jim West, who later became mayor of Spokane; Rep. Mark Sterk, who later became sheriff; and Sen. Bob McCaslin, who last week was elected to an eighth term.

The result is that the county has spent “well over $200 million” to eliminate septic tanks over the Spokane-Rathdrum aquifer and now has one class of customers that is exempt, Rawls said.

The issue boils down to a choice between protecting low-income residents of mobile home parks and protecting the region’s primary source of drinking water.

Low-income residents of apartments don’t get the same consideration, Rawls said.

He said the legislation grew out of Soap Lake’s attempt to collect sewer fees regardless of hookups and was reinforced when Spokane attempted similar action.

Spokane Sens. Lisa Brown and Chris Marr introduced a bill this year to allow Spokane County to force mobile home parks to hook up to sewers. The legislation was limited to parks over the Spokane-Rathdrum aquifer.

The bill was approved 32-16 in the Senate in February, but died in the House Rules Committee.

Marr said he sees no choice but to resurrect the bill in the next session now that environmental concerns have scuttled a deal for construction of a new Spokane County sewage treatment plant.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in September that it had improperly approved a plan for reducing phosphorous and other algae-feeding, fish-choking nutrients in the Spokane River.

A new plan, taking into account Idaho’s discharges into the river, likely will require more stringent efforts in Spokane County. Marr believes getting mobile home parks off septic tanks could be one such measure.

Contaminants that enter the aquifer may also enter the river.

Rawls has warned that delays in obtaining a river-discharge permit for the new treatment plant could result in a development moratorium in Spokane Valley. Meanwhile, rising construction costs threaten to make monthly sewer bills unaffordable for many people.

“Without the opportunity for further development, we’re never going to be able to spread the burden,” Marr said.

If the mobile home park bill is reintroduced, Marr believes an “unrealistic” amendment that prohibited mobile home park owners from passing sewer hookup costs to tenants should be dropped.

Instead, Marr suggested, grant money should be focused on mobile home parks to make hookups more affordable. Otherwise, he fears, tenants will be displaced by conversion of mobile home parks to other uses.

However, there’s a double-edged sword in hooking up existing homes to speed construction of a sewage treatment plant that will allow new homes to share the cost. It also speeds the potential development moratorium.

Spokane County is so close to running out of capacity at the city of Spokane treatment plant that it has had to slow the rate of hookups.

The county used to require property owners to connect within a year after a sewer line was completed, but that policy was abandoned in 2004 to conserve treatment capacity.