Small towns vexed by sewage

MABTON, Wash. -- Think of this town next time you look at your sewer bill.

April's sewage spill, caused by power and computer failures at the Mabton wastewater treatment plant, is a reminder that cities constantly need to look five, 10, even 15 years into the future when planning upgrades.

Get used to it. Because if city officials heed the advice of people like Ted Pooler, that will mean higher rates on your monthly utility bill.

Pooler, an engineer who represents several Yakima Valley wastewater plants, suggests hiking prices a little every year to save money for necessary improvements and future growth.

"My recommendation to a council is to consider annual increases to at least keep pace with inflation," said Pooler, a professional engineer with Huibregste, Louman and Associates, a Yakima civil engineering firm.

Upgrades to Mabton's wastewater plant are long overdue, Mayor Angel Reyna said, and they probably would have prevented the April 16 spill.

A dusty, poorly ventilated room with a bank of electric panels most likely contributed to a failure in the computer system that was supposed to switch the plant's pumps to backup power when the electricity failed, said operator Mark Adelmund. That allowed 370,000 gallons of sewage to flow untreated through the plant and into the Yakima River. Environmental officials called it the largest municipal sewage failure in Eastern Washington in the past 20 years.

The plant has not been cited for other instances of pollution, but in February the Department of Ecology cited the city of Mabton for 183 instances of either reaching capacity at its plant or not turning in water quality samples.

Reyna and Adelmund have taken steps to right the ship.

This spring, the city began contracting services from Adelmund, a 20-year veteran of wastewater treatment plant operation. He has cleaned away the cobwebs and mouse droppings in the laboratory, given it a fresh coat of paint and dusted off manuals that had been stored away in boxes. He also has repaired the computer system that governs the various equipment at the plant, so it will switch to backup generators in case the lights go out again.

Meanwhile, engineers have toured the plant on Vance Road to start drafting plans for improvements.

The city of Mabton has applied for two state grants that would help cover $80,000 needed just for upgrade designs. If the applications are turned down, the city may have to tap its meager reserves. Actually installing the improvements could require a hefty loan, which would require higher rates for customers.

The last time Mabton raised its sewer rates was in 2006, when the City Council bumped them up by less than $1 to $31.06 per month.

Longtime Councilwoman Vera Zavala remembers reluctantly voting for it.

She fears increases are inevitable again if the city is unsuccessful in finding a grant to make improvements at the wastewater plant. That will heap more cost onto people already struggling to pay their bills in the low-income city of 2,085 residents, she said.

"I think we're going to have to take out a big loan and if we do that, you better believe we're going to have to raise rates," Zavala said.

Nobody likes talking sewage

Mabton's troubles are extreme and compounded by political turmoil and financial disorganization over the past few years. But the city is by no means alone in struggling to keep its sewage plant up to snuff.

Environmental standards are tightened nearly every time cities renew their permits with regulators. And growth puts extra pressure on plants while city budgets dwindle with the shrinking economy.

To top it off, nobody really likes talking about sewage.

"People get so used to the fact that you flush the toilet and it all disappears," Adelmund said.

It puts elected leaders in a tough position.

Raising rates is never popular, and when city leaders do it to prepare for future growth, residents criticize them for taking money they don't need. But not raising sewage rates draws ire later, when city council members blame their predecessors for failing to take action earlier.

Meanwhile, rate increases can be justified only as well as they can be explained to the public. Engineers and public works directors talk about cubic-feet-per-second flows, suspended solids and other complicated measurements of pollutants and capacity.

Grant money is available but hard to come by. In May 2009, Toppenish, Yakima, Grandview and Union Gap all applied for federal stimulus funding for water and sewer projects, but none of them made the cut.

Wastewater treatment plants are governed by permits with either the state Department of Ecology or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and fall under the regulations spelled out in the federal Clean Water Act.

With each renewal application, cities must describe needed improvements, how much they will cost and how the city should raise rates to pay for them. Engineers typically give equipment a 20-year life span.

Mindful of the cost of maintenance, city councils discuss increasing rates nearly every year. Sewer rates have gone up in Prosser, Grandview, Naches, Toppenish and Sunnyside the past year, just to name a few.

Toppenish is finishing construction of a sewer plant upgrade that will cost up to $14 million to comply with more stringent ammonia, copper and zinc thresholds set by the EPA when the permit was renewed in 2006.

Construction should be completed in July, said Toppenish City Manager Bill Murphy.

A grant and low-interest loans offset the cost, but monthly bills have soared. The monthly base residential rate has risen $13 over the past two years -- from an average $40.53 to $53.60 -- and will go up again in 2011, Murphy said.

"I think it's going to be a very significant issue (for other cities) around the state," Murphy said.

Cities are required by state law to finance their sewage systems as enterprise funds, with sewer fees spent only on sewer-related expenses. Water, garbage and irrigation funds operate the same way.

To raise money for general city services, such as police protection and city hall staff, cities may tax sewage and water services.

Toppenish and Mabton have lowered utility taxes in recent years. Toppenish officials wanted to ease the financial burden of rate increases, while Mabton council members wanted to keep a promise from several years prior to lower taxes when they could.

Still paying for past upgrades

If anything, the city of Sunnyside has it good. The city's plant handles only residential sewage because the Port of Sunnyside treats industrial wastewater with its own plant.

Still, Sunnyside's municipal system is due for new equipment that could cost up to $3 million, said Jim Bridges, interim city manager. And officials are hesitant to simply raise prices to save up for that equipment.

Plus, monthly rates already are climbing. The city raised sewer rates 10 percent this year. Combined with a 4 percent water increase, the hike added $5.48 to a household's monthly utility bill. Most of that money is paying off past loans used to finance upgrades in 1992 and 2007, the most recent worth $19.5 million.

Raising those rates even more for future needs of an unseen function of the city, such as sewage, is politically challenging, especially to residents clamoring for more police officers.

Yakima County residents recently renewed the three-tenths of a cent sales tax to boost law enforcement. They probably wouldn't have been so kind with sewage rates, said Jim Restucci, Sunnyside mayor.

"It's way easier to sell the public on police officers than sewer plants," he said.

* Ross Courtney can be reached at 509-930-8798 or rcourtney@yakimaherald.com.