By the time it’s finished, the city’s new sewage treatment plant
and recycled water program may cost as much as $148 million,
according to an estimate released by City Manager Clint Quilter
this week.
Hollister – By the time it’s finished, the city’s new sewage treatment plant and recycled water program may cost as much as $148 million, according to an estimate released by City Manager Clint Quilter this week.
The estimate puts the cost of the first phase of the project – a new sewage treatment plant, reservoir and spray fields for disposal – at between $109 million and $120 million. The second phase, which includes further treatment of wastewater so it can be recycled and used for agriculture will cost between $19 million and $28 million. However, the second phase of the project likely won’t begin until after the new sewage treatment plant is built, according to Quilter.
Quilter called completion of the treatment plant the “immediate need” because once it’s finished the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board will lift the moratorium on sewer hook-ups that it placed on the Hollister in 2002 after 15 million gallons of treated sewage spilled into the San Benito River.
With such a large price tag looming, Quilter said the Governance Committee for the Hollister Urban Area Water and Wastewater Plan – a group comprised of representatives from Hollister, San Benito County and the county water district – will be working hard to find ways to finance the project.
About 46 percent of costs of the treatment plant will be covered by connection fees paid when new buildings start using the city’s sewer system, Quilter said, leaving 54 percent – less about $13 million from the Hollister Redevelopment Agency – to be paid for by other means. It has yet to be determined whether the city will bear the cost alone or have help from other government agencies represented on the Governance Committee, according to Quilter. One of the financing options that will be considered is the sale of government revenue bonds, he said.
Hollister Mayor Robert Scattini, who sits on the governance committee, said that he was surprised to find out that the first phase of the wastewater project – the treatment plant – could cost more than $100 million.
“It’s sickening, really,” he said. “I’d like to know how we’re going to pay for it.”
Scattini said a portion of the costs will likely come from increased sewer rates.
“Whatever you got to do, you got to do it,” he said.
City Councilman Doug Emerson said he was “shocked” when he found out how much the new treatment plant would cost, but after thinking about it he said he realized that future development in the city would pay for a good deal of the plant, which will be designed to accommodate decades of future growth.
“This new plant is going to be here well into the future,” he said. “A good portion (of the cost) has to be tied to growth that’s going to occur.”
Whatever the cost, Emerson said its important that the job is done right.
“The other thing I think we need to do … is not short cut and do things in a haphazard manner and pay for it later.”
Originally slated to be finished by December 2007, the new sewage treatment plant won’t be up and running until mid-2008 or early 2009, according to a revised schedule presented also released this week. Though construction on the plant will begin late this year as previously planned, recent research conducted by the city gives a more accurate time frame of just how long it will take to build a new sewage treatment plant. Comparable sewage treatment plants being built in other areas take between 18 and 30 months to build, according to Quilter. The average construction time is 22 months, he said.
Phase 2, the recycled water component of the project, might be financed with state and federal funds and fees from those who use the recycled water in agriculture, according to a long-term wastewater plan drafted by the city in December.
Options for lowering the high salt levels in Hollister’s water include educating the public about how to reduce the salt they put into the water system and passing a water softener ordinance requiring new homes to have water softeners that don’t put salt into to the water system. Another approach involves further treatment to desalinize water. The recycled water program is anticipated to be implemented by 2013, according to the long-term wastewater plan.
When it imposed the moratorium, the RWQCB gave the city until Oct. 15 of 2005 to construct a new plant. In October, the city dodged $200,000 in fines when, at the request of Quilter, the RWQCB gave the city more time to construct a new sewage treatment plant. At the same time that it granted the extension, the RWQCB gave the city a series of revised deadlines.
The city met the first deadline last month when it submitted a long-term wastewater plan. The other revised deadlines include awarding a construction contract for a new treatment plant by late 2006 and drafting a disposal plan for treated wastewater by March, 2007. Each deadline missed will result in more than $66,000 in fines being levied against the city.
Luke Roney covers local government and the environment for the Free Lance. Reach him at 831-637-5566 ext. 335 or at [email protected]
