PORT ANGELES — Clallam County officials have rolled out a draft ordinance for the $10.18 million Carlsborg sewer project that includes an additional $8 monthly business charge as they stay on track for an April 1 completion date.
Commissioners nurse hopes that more residents and businesses will sign up over the next several weeks.
The ordinance, presented to Clallam County commissioners Monday at their work session, includes $26 base rates for single-family and multi-family residential accounts, and $34 monthly for each “equivalent residential unit” (ERU) for commercial and public accounts, with ERUs based on the water-meter size for each commercial-public account.
Residential units are one equivalent residential unit.
That’s $8 more — $96 a year — than was anticipated for commercial customers who were going to pay the same as residential users, Public Works Director Bob Martin told the commissioners.
“For commercial customers, they’re going to have to go through a bit more requirements than residential customers,” Martin said, estimating the increase would cover additional required staff time.
Martin also presented new cost estimates for the project that showed an increase in project cost to $10.18 million from $9.03 million that includes additional staff charges, pending change orders and additional sewer mains.
The project is still within budget and maintains an $881,501 contingency.
Project construction is being funded with a $10 million loan from the state Public Works Trust Fund.
“We will use all of the trust fund,” Martin told the commissioners.
The county will start paying back the trust fund in 2019 under the 30-year loan that will include a 0.25 percent interest rate if the April 1 deadline is met, saving the county about $250,000 in interest, and a 0.5 percent interest rate if it is not.
Martin said Tuesday that the Department of Community Development was setting a date for a meeting with the Carlsborg Community Advisory Council to discuss the ordinance.
Martin said county officials also will meet with officials from the city of Sequim, whose wastewater treatment plant will receive effluent after it courses from Carlsborg under the U.S. Highway 101-Dungeness Bridge to a county Grant Road collection system on the city’s western boundary.
The system includes about 5 miles of new, mostly 8-inch gravity and pressure lines, Martin said Tuesday.
Another commissioners’ work session on the ordinance is planned Feb. 20.
Sequim-area Commissioner Mark Ozias, the commissioners’ chairman, said Tuesday he is confident that the project, designed to eliminate all new Carlsborg-area septic systems after April 1, will be “substantially complete” by that date.
“Substantial completion means that water can be pumped through the system from start to finish,” he said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean all the hookups need to be completed.”
Ozias said he expects the ordinance to be adopted after a public hearing “with whatever changes and edits come forth over the next couple of weeks.”
Once the system is operational, no new septic systems will be allowed for new developments in the area.
Residents and business owners will not be required to connect to the sewer system if they already have properly functioning septic tanks.
Meggan Uecker, county solid waste coordinator, said Monday that 47.5 ERUs are signed up.
She told commissioners she “expects there to be sort of a rush” as April 1 approaches.
Uecker said a mailer is going out to Carlsborg residents about the project and county officials will be at the North Peninsula Building Association Building, Remodeling and Energy Expo, set for Feb. 18-19 at Sequim High School, to discuss the project.
Martin said he expects 100 customers will be signed up by April 1.
The estimated cost to be part of the new sewer system is $2,600, including the homeowner’s cost for that portion of the sewer line from the home to the property line, the cost of decommissioning the septic system and a $500 connect fee.
“It looks like with all the people we’ve been talking to that have either said they are going to connect or are just trying to figure out the details of where to put the connections and stuff, it looks like there will be enough of those to probably be around 100 when we start service,” Martin said Tuesday.
“The more customers we have, the better off we are.
“We need a certain amount of flow in lines to keep stuff moving.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
