SEQUIM –– Sequim stands to receive more than $6 million in the county’s plan to send wastewater from Carlsborg to the city’s wastewater plant.
Increased use of its wastewater treatment plant would provide Sequim a boost of revenue, though rates drawn up by Clallam County, which would oversee the sewer system, and the city would minimize excess charges and direct funds to improve and maintain the city’s sewer plant, officials said.
Earlier this month, the county sent its 408-page plan for transporting Carlsborg sewage to Sequim for treatment to the state Department of Ecology for review.
The county also must finalize arrangements between the city and county, and go through a permit process, before bids can be requested for the project.
Public Works Administrator Bob Martin told the Sequim City Council on Monday night that the plan is to build the collection system next year and have it operational by 2016.
The system includes pipes throughout Carlsborg that would feed a pump station near the Olympic Discovery Trailhead on Carlsborg Road.
Wastewater would be fed by gravity through pipes and across the Dungeness River, likely under the U.S. Highway 101 bridge.
It would then continue east until hooking into the city’s sewer main at Grant Road.
Hooking into Sequim’s system will cost about $1.05 million as the county accounts for its share of the treatment system along with one-fifth of the cost of upgrading the sewer main line along Sunnyside Avenue.
The Clallam Public Utility District began eyeing a sewer system after a state mandate that Carlsborg get off septic systems, which is currently the primary sewage treatment option there, or lose its status as an Urban Growth Area.
Losing that status would mean businesses would not be allowed to expand.
Martin said the Carlsborg waste is expected to account for 1.71 percent of the Sequim treatment system use in 2016 and grow up to 6.3 percent of the system by 2036.
“By the time we get to 2050, we’ll be putting a lot more flow through those lines, and there’ll be a lot more need for expansion,” Martin said.
A meter would measure how much wastewater flows into the city’s system, and the city will then bill the county $0.0098 per gallon for that use, Sequim Public Works Director Paul Haines said.
Martin anticipated sewer bills for Carlsborg customers would be $65 to $70 a month — “which is comparable to what other sewer customers pay,” he said.
Over the next 15 years, when the bulk of the sewer collection system is planned to be built, the total cost of moving wastewater to Sequim is projected at $17.2 million.
Building a treatment system at Carlsborg was initially considered by the county and the PUD before them.
If Ecology rejects the Sequim option, it may come back into discussion.
That cost would be $21.7 million over the next 15 years. Martin said the cost would be lower in the 15 years following that, but the use would be greater since Carlsborg is expected to expand.
By 2050, the projected total cost of the Sequim option is $41.2 million, compared with $54.1 million for the Carlsborg alternative, he said.
“Who’s paying for this?” asked Sequim Mayor Pro Tem Dennis Smith.
Martin told the City Council the county is planning to use opportunity fund dollars, derived from a rebate of the state’s share of Clallam County sales taxes, to pay off a low-interest $10 million loan from the state Public Works Trust Fund.
The county receives about $800,000 to $900,000 a year in opportunity dollars, Martin said, and would use about half of that every year for the next 20 years to pay off the loan.
Martin said Tuesday most of the total money the county has used and will use for the project is from the opportunity fund.
________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Joe Smillie can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or at jsmillie@peninsuladailynews.com.
