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When Sewer Is Ready in 2011, Who'll Be Required to Hook Up? |
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Written by Jeff Radford
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Monday, 21 December 2009 |
Even after construction is completed for the liquids-only sewer line in
the business district —presumably some time in January— it won’t be in
use until 2011.
Mayor Phil Gasteyer said December 8 he doesn’t expect the “first flush”
until sometime in 2011. That’s even if all the funding for the sewer
line is available, and it’s not.
Adequate funding is in place to run the sewer line from Meadowlark on
south to just beyond Cabezon Road where it was supposed to tie into
existing conventional sewers that lead to the waste water treatment
plant in the South Valley. But the sewage pumping station there
(installed years ago for the apartment complexes to the west) can’t
handle the projected additional flows from Corrales, so the Village’s
line has to go a few thousand feet more to a larger pumping station
just south of the Coors-Alameda intersection.
About a half-million dollars more needs to be found to extend the line.
When Gasteyer heard about that new wrinkle last summer, he approached
Governor Bill Richardson on the possibility of new funding for the
project. The mayor said the governor reassured him the extra cost could
be covered, but now that prospect seems doubtful.
“We’ve had no further indication that we’ll get additional funding,”
the mayor said. “So at this point we need to pursue any additional
funding we can find from the state or federal governments.
“The number we used with the governor was $500,000. It would be for
design plus construction oversight by engineers and possibly an
environmental impact document.
“The hardware part is really pretty simple: it’s just a straight sewer
pipe with a manhole at the end. But the difficult part is surveying and
engineering through a very complicated installation of existing
utilities. There’s got to be all sorts of utilities underground” along
Corrales Road between Cabezon and Alameda Boulevard.
Despite the current lack of funding to complete the sewer project, the
mayor said there are no plans to finance it through municipal bonds or
a tax assessment district. “I still continue to support the idea of
getting this done with other people’s money. Essentially not calling
upon the village residents to do additional financing.”
“We’re still following the road map set by Urey Lemen’s committee
[recommendations from the Corrales Water Quality Advisory Committee,
April 2009]. Where we continue to stand is that we want to put in the
STEP system [septic tank effluent pressurized] and we’d like very much
to broaden it to Sector B neighborhoods as a goal.”
Sector B refers to higher density neighborhoods east and west of
Corrales Road with “immediate need” for waste water solutions as
identified in the 2008 study by the Souder, Miller and Associates
engineering firm.
Comment: Does the Village Council at some point have to say ‘Yes, we’re
approving extending the sewer line to such and such neighborhoods?’
Gasteyer: “Yes, there will be more decision points. The recommendation
[from the Lemen committee] is that it’s a totally Village-owned
enterprise, and that you [the homeowner or business owner] have an
easement up to your septic tank” along which the Village’s contractor
would install a small pipe to take liquid sewage out the sewer line
along Corrales Road.
‘We’ll eventually have to, by ordinance or resolution, have a decision
point on connecting from the home to the sewer line. And also, who has
to connect. The committee’s recommendation was that if you’re a
property owner within 200 feet of Corrales Road in the commercial core,
you would be required to connect —although it has an exemption for
‘lots meeting current N.M. Environment Department standards until there
is a property transfer, system failure or 10 years, whichever occurs
first.’”
Comment: One of the central questions is whether the
administration, or Village Council, is intending to implement that, or
is that just a recommendation until the council actually votes on it?
Gasteyer: “Well, we’re going to have a municipal election, and we’re
going to have new councillors, and maybe even a new mayor, who knows?
So these decisions have to be made by the next governing body. That
decision kicks in after the STEP system is completed and ready to go.
It won’t be ready to go until we can hook up to [the sewers managed by]
Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority (ABCWUA), so
there’s some time here.”
Comment: So that assumption that the Village is going to own the lines
going out to the sewer main through an easement… that may happen or may
not happen? And you’re thinking that it will depend on the outcome of
the election?
Gasteyer: “Yeah. Certainly as a candidate [for a second term as mayor]
I’m going to advocate the recommendations from this committee.”
Comment: To what extent are the Lemen committee’s recommendations now
Village policy and to what extent are those decisions still up in the
air?
Gasteyer: “I think it’s yet to be determined. That would be the correct
answer. At least in other communities, these projects take long periods
of time and require many different steps and phases.
“We’re at the point where we will have, by the end of this month,
constructed the basic system. Then we’re at the point where we have to
design the transmission line to the Village boundary, and we have to
construct that line. And I think we have the money to do all of that.
“The unexpected development in the middle of May was that ABCWUA
decided that they couldn’t take the maximum flow that was projected if
we made every [septic tank] connection in Sector B as well as the
Corrales Road area. The engineers even assumed a certain number of
connections between Meadowlark and Calle Cuervo.
“That’s when they announced, ‘Well, if you’re going to be 195,000
gallons per day rather than 60 or 70,000 gallons per day, why, then
there’s no way, because we’re already over-capacity at the Calle Cuervo
lift station and the sewer pipe down to the larger lift station at
Alameda.’”
Although Village officials had been assured years ago the Calle Cuervo
lift station would be adequate for Corrales’ sewage, the mayor
explained, that was before the Flying Star shopping center added more
volume and before Corrales’ input was upped from 60,000 gallons per day
to nearly 200,000.
The mayor said the utility authority has claimed it would be too
expensive to double the size of the Calle Cuervo lift station
because a bigger sewer line from it to the Alameda-Coors lift station
would also have to be installed.
Comment: It sounds like the election in March could be decisive for the
sewer line. It was always possible that a new council could overturn an
earlier policy, but from what you’re saying, it sounds like the policy
was never actually set.
Gasteyer: “Well, not in terms of what it means for the homeowner or
business owner along the route of the sewer line. There are still
details and decisions that have to be made. As for extending collection
lines to neighborhoods, we will definitely need additional funding to
go to the neighborhoods.”
Comment: How much and where will it come from?
Gasteyer: “The only thing I have to work from is the estimate in the
Lemen report. They said $1.5 million, and they got that figure from
conversations with Jerry May of Souder, Miller and Associates [the
engineering firm designing the sewer line].”
The mayor said that includes all of the neighborhoods identified by
Souder Miller as Sector B. “That is all of the denser areas south of
Old Church Road, such as the South Felice Perea neighborhood,
Priestly-Coroval, Mountain Shadows and others.
“You wouldn’t necessarily have to do them all at once. Perhaps you could make a further determination of ‘most immediate need.’”
Comment: When would you say would be the earliest that the system will be ready for those properties along Corrales Road?
Gasteyer: “I am saying that the ‘first flush’ will be in 2011 sometime.
The way I get to that is to say, we’ve been delayed in part because of
the situation in the NMED in Santa Fe and the State’s fiscal problems.
And we’ve been delayed in getting the design of the transmission
portion of the line going. It’s just now beginning. We thought it was
going to begin back in August. But Souder Miller is saying it will only
take three months” to design the sewer line that runs from Meadowlark
to Cabezon (actually Calle Cuervo).
“That will take until March, and then there will be some review time in
Santa Fe, so it will probably be October of next year before we have a
completed transmission line” to Cabezon.
“In the meantime, we’ll be working on the connection situation with
ABCWUA” on south to Alameda Boulevard. “And of course, getting the
money to do that will be a limitation on our timetable.”
The mayor said the funding that had been assembled for the sewer line
from federal, state and county sources was initially thought to be
adequate to complete the line down to Cabezon and still have funds left
over to pay for hook-ups.
“We had really hoped that we would have $300,000 to $400,000 left to
help subsidize hook-ups for the people along the route and perhaps get
out into some of these [neighborhood] areas. We still hope that will be
possible to do.”
Comment: So up to this point, you still anticipate that homeowners or
business owners in the commercial district will pay a $500 hook-up fee?
Gasteyer: “Yeah, we’re going to try to stick to this $500 fee
recommended in the Lemen report, if the hook-up agreement is in place
within 90 days of the line being ready to accept sewage.”
He said he did not recall what monthly user fee had been recommended.
Comment: What has become of the suggestion that the Village needed to
begin a program that would require and monitor periodic septic tank
pumping?
Gasteyer: “In the report, they said the committee recommends an
ordinance requiring septic tanks or advanced treatment systems to be
pumped a minimum of every three years and that all homeowners be
required to submit documentation of their septic permits, and that we
would attempt to enforce the requirement for pumping on a three-year
cycle.”
Comment: So where do we stand on that? Is somebody going to bring that up at some point?
Gasteyer: “I think that’s a matter for the new council to consider. But
we will start collecting a one-sixteenth environmental services tax at
the first of the year, and the idea behind that is it would give us the
wherewithal to hire at least a part-time supervisor so we would have a
way of implementing a recommendation like that. It’s my expectation we
will do that early next year.”
The mayor said the Souder Miller recommendation for a phased conversion
of all septic tanks in Corrales to “advanced treatment systems” is not
likely to be implemented. “The Souder Miller concept has sort of been
supplanted by what the Lemen committee thought. Their idea was
basically to exempt properties that are currently compliant with NMED
requirements. In the Sectors B and C, I think they were calling for
these advanced treatment systems for sub-standard properties. But I
think the new council will want to re-visit that issue and see if it
will impose such requirements by ordinance.”
Comment: Looking back, are you still convinced that this technology
with the liquids-only sewer line connecting to retained septic tanks in
the business district was the best choice? No second thoughts?
Gasteyer: “Well, it was what we could afford when we could afford it, I
guess. This was driven by having the first version peer-reviewed by
another firm, and very close oversight from Dr. Richard Rose [NMED
bureau chief for waste water system construction].” |
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