City officials argue the increase is the first in eight years and is needed to pay for upgrades at the Wastewater Treatment Plant. The Missoula City Council takes public comment on the matter Nov. 3, but some citizens already are registering opposition.
“It's an increase, and people are very, very concerned about any cost increase these days,” Chief Administrative Officer Bruce Bender said Tuesday.
Bender said in the past, growth has paid for inflationary costs but the rate of new connections is slowing down. Some of the money is slated to help new users hook into the system. Some residences in the Rattlesnake Valley aren't on sewer yet, and Bender said the city committed to pay for half the cost of the sewer main in the street.
Also, roughly half of the income is dedicated for a $6 million upgrade of the headworks building at the plant. Plant superintendent Starr Sullivan said the building is 25 years old and some mechanics are scheduled to be replaced in the next couple of years. Also, he said when the state Department of Environmental Quality issued the plant a permit in 2007, it required the facility begin measuring intake.
“We do need to do this upgrade. The decision was to do it in a bundle,” Starr said.
Across the region, Missoulians pay the lowest sewer fees, Bender said. He said Missoula pays half of Helena's rate, almost a third of Kalispell's, and it's even low compared with rates in the Dakotas and Minnesota.
“Even with this rate increase, we are still the lowest rate in the state,” he said.
That doesn't appease some opponents who already have sent comments to City Clerk Marty Rehbein. She forwarded letters to the Missoulian, including one from Brian Miller, controller at Davis Transport, a trucking company.
“I don't really live anywhere else. That really doesn't mean much,” said Miller. “What I'm concerned about is that they're raising costs at a time when the economy is slowing down.”
In his letter, Miller asks the council to postpone increases and revisit the idea in 2010. He asks the city to refrain from burdening businesses with another price increase when they already are struggling to survive.
“Our business has been through one of the hardest years in our company history. We have incurred high fuel prices, slowing freight and increasing operational costs on everything we purchased,” his letter says.
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John Q. Public wrote on Oct 22, 2008 10:20 AM: