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Ohio EPA increases rating of sewage plant
Thursday, May 5, 2005
By MICHAEL J. MAURER
ThisWeek Staff Writer
Mayor David Shaver announced Tuesday night that the Ohio EPA has rated the city's sewage treatment plant at 1.6-million gallons per day, a 33-percent improvement over the current rating of 1.2-million gallons per day.
''This means the ability to provide further (wastewater) service to the community without expanding the present plant,'' Shaver said.
Councilman Brian Wisniewski said the higher rating is the equivalent of building a plant expansion without having to pay for it.
''We did that without having to spend any money, other than the stress test (that proved the plant's capacity),'' Wisniewski said. ''Compare that to the $10-million we were going to spend on (an expanded) plant, and the number of new homes we would have had to build to pay off the debt.''
During 2003 and 2004, a proposed $11-million plant expansion was the subject of heated debate among council members and many community members who argued for slow-growth residential development policies.
Proponents of the plant expansion, including former city manager Joyce Bushman, had obtained a $3-million subsidy, tied to plant construction, that would have allowed the purchase of the Hickory Lakes resort property for a city park at no cost to the city.
When Shaver and a slate of slow-growth council members took office in January 2004, plans for a sewage plant expansion were tabled and a stress test was scheduled to determine whether the existing plant could serve more than its rated capacity.
Tuesday night, Councilman Bill Wright said that while the increase in capacity is good, the city has traded short-term savings for a larger long-term cost.
''When you look at the growth of Pickerington, there's going to be a need for a wastewater treatment plant,'' Wright said. ''We lost a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to provide for future growth and get a 100-acre park besides.''
Councilman Doug Parker said the Ohio EPA eventually will force Pickerington to expand its current plant to handle new home growth.
''The time to expand this thing is now,'' Parker said.
Wisniewski said the planned expansion would have forced Pickerington to add 300 new homes annually, on top of hundreds of other homes that fall within the city but not within the sewage district served by the plant. The new construction would be necessary, Wisniewski said, because homes within the sewage district would pay a one-time capital charge to pay for the plant.
By Boondoggle Buster
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Last year same group
Sewer Plant on Shelf
Plan to remain in committee
City council shelves sewer plant proposal
Thursday, April 22, 2004
MICHAEL J. MAURER
This Week Staff Writer
Pickerington City Council voted to table an increasingly controversial expansion of the city's waste water treatment plant Tuesday night and send it back to the service committee for further consideration.
However, a majority of council members said they were unlikely to support the $9-million project in any event.
Councilman Ted Hackworth was first to announce his opposition.
''There are a lot of citizens out here asking what we're doing and what our position is,'' he said. ''I oppose it. I think it's too much.''
Hackworth recited a cost-of-studies report prepared last year by a consultant that found Pickerington's per capita expenditures for all services had grown by 93 percent over a 10 year period from 1991 to 2001, but that per capita revenues had grown by only 60 percent during the same time period.
Also during the period, the city's population grew at an annual rate of 4.5 percent, Hackworth said.
The proposed sewer plant expansion, which would add 2.3 million gallons per day capacity to the existing plant, would last the city for 42 years, according to the report.
''Do we really need to look that far ahead?'' Hackworth said. ''We must find another option that's both smaller and cheaper. The city of Pickerington has dug a financial hole during the last 12 years.''
Councilman Mike Sabatino said he believed 5 percent was a reasonable rate of growth, while councilman Brian Wisniewski said that the 5 percent growth rate was not total population, but only a portion of the population that is connected to the city's plant. Some subdivisions, including Sycamore Creek and Fox Glen, used other utility services and so would not be included in the projected growth rate.
Councilman Doug Parker said the treatment plant was intentionally oversized to give the city control over the waste water capacity of Sycamore Creek, which might be lost to another city if Pickerington did not take it now. He also said this would be the last plant the city would ever have to build.
Council President Heidi Riggs said that the city's sewer plant-related debt would be $22-million if the city went forward with the proposed expansion. She said that several of the candidates for city manager interviewed during the past three weeks have suggested the city's debt is too high.
''That's the fist thing they say, is how concerned they are with what we're looking at and the debt we're in in this city,'' Riggs said.
Councilman Mitch O'Brien said the city should wait for the results of a growth management plan to determine how large any treatment plant expansion should be.
''From this growth management plan, we'll have a recommended rate of growth,'' he said. ''With that, they'll tell us how big a sewer plant we need and how soon we need it.''
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Same group continued
Sabatino said council should just go ahead and kill the plant now, rather than waste more time in committee.
''Why don't we just put a fork in this thing and be done with it?'' Sabatino said.
Wisniewski said he wanted more information before killing the project, although he acknowledged he was unlikely to support it.
Councilman Bill Wright said the consultant's report indicated that Pickerington was making money on growth, with a cost of only 90 cents in city services for every dollar of revenue. He also said the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency was likely to force the city to make the plant expansion.
''They have indicated there will be sanctions and findings if we don't pursue this (plant expansion),'' Wright said.
Wright also said that anyone who thought limiting growth would help alleviate overcrowding in the Pickerington Local School District was mistaken, because growth was moving to the township.
''You've got a regional approach you have to take for this (growth problem),'' Wright said.
Mayor David Shaver said he had asked council to table the treatment plant expansion rather than killing it outright, because he wanted to discuss the matter with Ohio EPA. Shaver concurred with Wright's observation about growth in Violet Township.
''I agree wholeheartedly, people should be going to the township and saying, 'You should be doing home rule and putting growth restrictions in place the way the city does','' Shaver said.
In other business, council:
Passed by emergency an ordinance authorizing a contract with McBride Dale Clarion to prepare a comprehensive land use plan.
Passed by emergency an ordinance granting a variance to Cat Tracks, 836 Refugee Road, to allow sales of vehicles through 2010.
Heard the first reading of an ordinance enacting a new ethics policy for the city of Pickerington.
Heard the second reading of an ordinance authorizing the city's participation with the Ohio Department of Transportation and the city of Reynoldsburg for repaving and modifying state Route 256 at Interstate 70.
Heard the second reading of an ordinance authorizing an application for state capital improvement program funds for storm water drainage construction on Long Road.
Heard the second reading of an ordinance authorizing the issuance of notes in the amount of $2-million to realign Diley Road.
Tabled an ordinance that would have modified the issuance of new home permits issued under the city's housing moratorium, to allow permits to be transferred among different lots.
Set a public meeting for May 4, 7:15 p.m., at City Hall, for discussion of the 2005 tax budget.
Sewer plant update
This Week in Pickerington
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Low water toilet
Here are the numbers folks and you decide:
In late 2003 a group of Pickerington City residents ran a referendum on the Sewer plant expansion proposal it slowed the progess long enough to get a new council elected and into office. It called for a 2.3 million gallon per day expansion. AT 360 average gallons per day of the normal household that expansion would have provided for 11,944 NEW HOMES in the city sewer district.
The debt to do the expansion would have been $10,900,000.00. This did include a 90 acre park known as Hickory Lakes. Hickory Lakes was the carrot. Some on our city council believed this park came FREE. As you can tell from their recent comments the same people still believe that. The normal interest on the $10.9 Million would have been around $3.3 Million. The Ohio EPA allowed the city to pay for the park instead of paying them the interest.
There are nearly 6000 residential units within the City of Pickerington today. Not all of these dwelling units get their sewer service from the City?’s waste water plant down on Hill road.
As many of you may remember in November of 2002 the Pickerington City Council passed the final plats on over 2,200 building lots. Ignoring the two lots per acre ordinance they also sent through the Zoning Appeals Board another two hundred or more condos near the police after the Pickerington School Board accepted a $225,000 bribe for their sports programs in the summer of 2003.
I am told the residual of those approved lots are at 1,955 approved lots in Pickerington. This includes Condo/apartments and single family homes. I believe the number of single family lots approved is at around 1,500.
Approximately 850 approved building lots fall within the service area of the Pickerington Sewer plant.
Another fact is that Pickerington in the Calendar Year of 2005 has only issued 48 building permits.
Juts to pay the debt on the above $10,900,000 loan the city would have had to sell well over 250 sewer taps each year to break even. I believe Mr. Wright has been quoted of that fact in 2003 when there was talk of a total moratorium.
So for those that don?’t understand what is going on down at City Hall then you should be happy to know if the New Council would not have stood up to the forces of City Hall and the builders last year the City Sewer plant would have been in the hole this year to the tune of $320,000. They are only on the track to sell 150 sewer taps this year. Actually those figures are even worse than I state because many of the sewer taps included in those building permits actually flush to Canal Winchester. We would have had the capacity to service 11,400 new homes and that does not include the Villages at Sycamore Creek, Fox Glen and Wellington Park.
We are currently only selling 150 tap a year. Please someone tell me why Doug Parker and Bill Wright believe it is so urgent to commit to that much sewer capacity?
By Drained
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