High Springs wastewater will flow on

With a 3-2 vote Tuesday night, the High Springs City Commission decided to move forward with the city’s wastewater treatment project.

Mike Clark of Jones Edmunds Engineering, the city’s contracted engineering firm, presented options available to proceed with the continuation of the sewer system expansion.

Mayor Larry Travis, and Commissioners Byran Williams and Sue Weller shared in the majority in approving one of the options.

Meanwhile, Commissioners Eric May and Dean Davis refused to support the expansion on grounds that the city can’t afford it.

The selected option includes expanding the wastewater treatment plant with a 0.50 MGD (million gallons per day) new ring steel package construction and completing the phase-four portion of hookups to the system. Weller made the initial motion to approve, saying it gives “the most bang for the buck.”

Weller suggested including phase five hookups in the plan too, and that was approved as well.

The total estimated cost, according to Clark, is $6.7 million.

The city began this discussion of how to move forward with the project after receiving word last month that its $4.9 million bond was validated, allowing the city to take out a loan for up to that amount.

The city also has about $3.9 million in grant funds to be spent on the plant expansion or for adding additional utility customers to the system, but the terms of the grant require that loan funds be used first.

The original bond resolution required the city to prove that its total yearly revenue is at least 1.2 percent of its debt.  High Springs was granted a waiver of that requirement through Rural Development, the USDA agency financing the sewer project.

May and Davis still insisted they would not vote to borrow the money or dedicate funding to any further action on the sewer system until they had solid answers for how the city can afford it and whether the numbers presented by Jones Edmunds were accurate.

All commissioners seemed to agree on how unappealing the prospect of ending the project now looks. Clark explained that if the city decided to end the project as it stands, customers already online from phases one, two and three would be responsible for repaying the debt service already incurred by the system.

If the commission had put an end to it now, under the premise that no additional customers got hooked up, the city would have had two options, he said.

The first would consist of a minimum monthly charge of $39.95 for residential users and $53.92 for commercial users with a 1.5 percent yearly rate increase. The second option would be a minimum monthly charge of $54.50 for residential users and $73.56 for commercial users, but with no yearly rate increase.

Davis said, “If you raise rates on the customers, all you have done is raise taxes.”

A local realtor asked the commission to consider putting the project on hold. He suggested that there was nothing stopping the city from waiting until it became more financially stable before resuming the project. He pointed out he is in favor of the sewer system because it will be necessary for commercial growth, but the city shouldn’t take out a loan it can’t afford.

With the 3-2 vote approving the plan to move forward, despite May and Davis voting against it, Clark said it would take about two years to complete the project.