The Allenstown Sewer Commission is trying once again to get voters to pass a $15 million bond that would expand the current Suncook Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The proposed expansion would pay to construct new clarifiers to deal with the amount of sewage passing through the plant, doubling the plant’s capacity to 2.1 million gallons per day from the current 1 million gallons.

Taxpayers and sewer ratepayers would like to know who is going to pay for the upgrades.

The bond is set up so that Allenstown would pay 48 percent of the total bond, or $7.2 million, and Pembroke 52 percent, or $7.8 million.

Those numbers are based on what was referred to as the worst-case scenario, in which the project would receive no grant money Despite the town’s long partnership with Pembroke, Michael Trainque of Hoyle, Tanner and Associates, the engineering firm planning the project, said the decision to expand the plant falls on the residents of Allenstown because Allenstown retains the permit to operate it.

“Pembroke is really like one large user,” Trainque said at a public information meeting on the proposal on Monday, Nov. 12, at St. John the Baptist Parish Hall.

Pembroke Sewer Commissioner Harold Thompson said his hands are tied until the bond passes with Allenstown voters, adding that he fears the amount of grants the project qualifies for will disappear as more facilities throughout the state max out and look for funding to expand.

“It’s a hard sell. How are you going to tell people that we need it?” Thompson said, adding that if the federal government has to step in to force the expansion, the costs are going to increase.

The Department of Environmental Services issued a moratorium on the plant in 2002, barring the plant from taking on any extra sewage and thus limiting new hookups in Pembroke and Allenstown.

Dana Clement, the plant’s operator, said there are currently eight agreements with other towns to take on septage, which is a different process from the sewage clarifying and does not go through the plant itself.

Allenstown Sewer Commissioner James Rodger said the septage process has taken in about $2 million since it was initiated as a pilot program in 2005. Some of that has been spent on purchasing and installing special covers, on chemicals for odor control and on studies related to the proposed expansion, he said.

He added that the intent for the septage process was to raise money to put toward the expansion and to increase the possibility of grant money from various sources, but that the commission cannot commit to a certain amount of that money that will go toward the expansion.

Trainque said costs would increase in the future if the community waits too long to upgrade the plant.

“It’s always painful to do a project like this. Every community goes through that,” Trainque said, adding that the need for the plant’s expansion would not go away.

The options for funding the expansion include spreading the amount among all taxpayers, limiting it to sewer ratepayers or a combination of the two.

Armand Verville, a resident who is not connected to the town sewer, said he would agree with taxpayers paying 10 percent and sewer users the other 90 percent, but would not vote for something that would be distributed equally among both groups.

“I would like to know before this gets off the ground who and what is going to pay for it,” Verville said. “This thing will never go through unless you tell non-sewer users what it’s going to cost them.”

Trainque said the plant qualifies for several state and federal grants, some of which could reduce bond payments by 50 percent by themselves. A combination of grants could increase that savings.

In what he referred to as a worse-case scenario, in which the project got no grant money and the $7.2 million was equally dispersed among Allenstown taxpayers, taxes would increase by $1.67 per $1,000 of assessed property value. For those owning homes assessed at $144,000, Trainque said, that increase amounts to an additional $240.72 per year.

If only sewer users were responsible for the cost, sewer rates would increase by $5.80 per 1,000 gallons, an increase of about 89 percent over the current rate of about $6.50.

Should the project receive 20 percent in grants, Allenstown’s bond obligation drops to about $5.7 million. If it receives 50 percent in grants, the obligation drops to about $3.6 million.

Trainque added that grants paid for 86 percent of a $2 million bond for a 2004 plant expansion he worked on in Rollinsford, reducing the town’s burden to $276,800.

Thompson said the Pembroke Sewer Commission has not yet looked at how its portion will be dispersed, either among ratepayers or taxpayers, because Allenstown has to pass the bond before those discussions can take place.

“It could come down to the point that the users and the taxpayers could not pay anyting on that bond,” Thompson said, adding that he thinks Pembroke voters would pass the bond if they were legally allowed to do so.

Allenstown resident Jeff Abbe pointed out at the meeting that the sewer commissions from both towns must work together to get the project on track, and that impact fees from developers who wish to build in the towns should help to pay for the expansion.

“It’s so important that this thing gets built for everybody,” Abbe said.

More information on the plans and funding possibilities is available online at Allenstownsewercommision.org.

The next public information session is scheduled for Monday, Nov. 28, at 7 p.m. at the Parish Hall.