Sean C. Morgan
A consultant working for the City of Sweet Home may recommend an increase of approximately 120 percent in the water system development charge (SDC).
Paul Matthews, representing Integrated Utilities Group, Inc., met with a working committee Thursday evening to discuss his preliminary work on the SDC.
After analysis, Matthews presented three alternatives for SDCs. The first alternative changes the charge from $612 to $1,347 for three-quarter inch meters.
The second alternative understates the impact of growth on the system, Matthews said. The second alternative proposes an SDC of $959.
The third alternative proposes an SDC of $2,113 and overstates the impact of growth on the water system.
Matthews’ analysis determines the amount of capacity still available in the water system. That existing capacity is technically built by existing water customers, and the SDC represents new customers reimbursing existing customers for use of the system.
The SDC also takes into account the water treatment plant the city will begin building in the next year.
The question Matthews asks in analyzing Sweet Home’s SDCs is whether growth pays for itself.
Growth should neither subsidize existing customers, Matthews said, and existing customers should not subsidize growth.
The SDC ordinance is how the city makes sure customers pay for the services they use.
The proposal Matthews will recommend relies on the replacement cost of the system less depreciation.
It uses local history to determine how much water is used by customers on average. For larger meters, of which Sweet Home has too few to determine reasonable averages, Matthews uses Tualatin Valley Water District averages. The large meters are primarily industrial. Sweet Home has only one of the largest, and eight-inch meter; one six-inch meter; five four-inch meters; four three-inch meters .
Matthews will now move forward in setting up the methodology by which the city will charge the SDC and begin analyzing the sewer SDC. The city will not develop a storm water SDC at this time because there is no utility set up.
The wastewater SDC presents a sort of quandary. Much of the capacity of the system has been added over the last decade to deal with inflow and infiltration (I&I), which is typically storm water that gets into the system through cracks in the pipe or cross connection to storm drains.
As the city reduces I&I, it increases the capacity of the sewer system. The question Matthews is asking is how much of the city’s I&I reduction projects should be counted as new capacity.
He will use some measure of the existing extra capacity in his calculations.
A representative of a home builders’ association said the test is whether, if the city never hooks anyone else up to the sewer system, the city would still have to do the I&I reduction projects.
The projects, estimated as high as $30 million, would deal with 75 percent of the system’s I&I problems, Public Works Director Mike Adams said.