Paris Water, Sewage Charges Will Climb

by Matt Hongoltz-Hetling
     
     PARIS – More than sewage is coming down the pipeline for the 1,000 Paris households that use the services of the Paris Utility District (PUD).
     There's also a significant rate increase in the works for 2011, although right now, no one knows how much the increase might be.
     PUD Utility Manager Steve Arnold says that the increase “won't be in this calendar year. We'll have a public hearing to hear people's concerns, probably early next year.”
     Right now, most residential users pay about $172 per year for water, and $376 per year for sewage.
     Arnold says that the rate increases will help to cover the cost of an ongoing multi-million dollar, large-scale modernization of the plant's sewage treatment process, which was built in 1975 to serve the needs of a much different community.
     “The project isn't finished yet,” said PUD Board member Al Barth. “We're still trying to tie down numbers.”
     The project should be completed later this year.
     Barth said that it's difficult to speculate on what the final number will be, but that it seems safe to say that it will be a “fairly significant increase.”
     “It will be more than 20 percent, but how much more I have no idea,” said Barth.
     Arnold says that a 2007 increase was the only one in the last 12 or 13 years, when rates jumped by over 30 percent.
     “We can't make a profit,” Arnold says, “We're only allowed to operate to maintain costs. We're trying to find an amicable situation for everybody.”
     Arnold says that much of the funding of the project has come from other sources.
     In 2006, the PUD received a Rural Development assistance package that consisted of a 45-percent grant coupled with a 55-percent loan.
     “At the time, those terms were unheard of,” said Arnold.
     In addition, the PUD has been awarded two Community Development Block Grants, which totaled another million dollars.
     The rural development loan was disbursed in two phases. Phase One used $1.3 million to upgrade the plant's headworks portion, which takes water in and screens out various forms of contaminants.
     Phase Two is for $6.3 million, and is being used to complete the town's new sewage treatment processes, which will include a variety of technological processes to make the processing of sewage more effective and more energy-efficient.
     The high-tech equipment will have some higher costs associated with them, such as the need for specialized repairmen. However, Arnold says that those cost increases should be offset by gains in efficiency. Some of the monitoring that now needs to be done in person will now be performed from a central location within the PUD. A complex array of sensors will allow staff to respond more effectively to problems.
     “Based on what we're told, our costs shouldn't increase as far as maintenance goes,” said Arnold.
     Green technologies will help to offset the total cost.
     LED lighting will be installed throughout the district's structures, and the PUD building's heat pump will now be powered by wastewater.
     “Based on what our engineers are telling us, it should cover 80 to 85 percent of our heating costs,” said Arnold. “It will be supplemented by propane, and replaces our need for oil.”
     That works out to a big savings for the PUD.
     “We used to burn over 7,000 gallons of oil a year,” said Arnold. “When oil was 40 cents a gallon, it wasn't a big deal. When it's two, three, four dollars a gallon, as it has been in the past, it is a big deal.”
     The increased costs for the user will come about largely as a result of increased debt service. Arnold estimates that the total loan amount was $4.5 million.
     Arnold said that the 1975 system was built to serve the needs of a different Paris.
     “It was designed with the cannery and the tannery in mind,” said Arnold. “When you lose that infrastructure, your system doesn't make sense anymore. We'll probably never see a tannery or a cannery again in this town, at least not in our time.”
     Arnold says that, when designing the current plant project, the PUD talked with town officials, including then-manager Sharon Jackson, to try to predict what the town might look like in the future.
     “We built the plant with foresight, so that we could accommodate the town 15 or 20 years from now,” said Arnold.