Allenstown News : Wastewater Treatment Plant

Sewer stalls development

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:34:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

After Allenstown voters shot down the Suncook Wastewater Treatment Plant’s $15 million expansion for the second year in a row, sewer commissioners and the plant’s operator said they are back at square one.

Sewer Commissioner James Rodger said harsh economic times led to tighter wallets this year, which led to the town’s “no” vote for not just the expansion but every single cost item on the warrant this year.

“When the ship sank, our warrant was on it,” Rodger said.

Amendment caused failure Rodger also said a stipulation added to the warrant article at the town’s deliberative session on Feb. 2 made the article worthless.

An amendment passed at that meeting added wording that would not allow the project to go forward unless 50 percent matching grants were secured. The problem with that, Rodger said, is the town needed to say it will pay the project costs up front in order to secure such grants that would reimburse the town.

A Feb. 12 e-mail from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Department, one of the agencies being largely considered as a source of grant funding for the project, said the 50 percent contingency added to the article would hurt Allenstown’s chances for funding.

The e-mail, addressed to Michael Trainque of Hoyle, Tanner and Associates, the engineering firm spearheading the expansion project, states limits on the availability of funds may prevent them from providing 50 percent in grants to the project and would compel USDA Rural Development to give it to another project instead.

“Fifteen million (dollars) is a large improvement project,” Rural Development Specialist Scott Johnson wrote in the email. “Rural Development looks forward to being involved if possible.

If Allenstown anticipates securing any grant funds from Rural Development, placing limits on how much of the total project is loan or grant could box them in a corner, rendering them unable to accept monies that may be available.

“Our advice to communities is to vote to borrow the RD portion of the project costs so that they are able to accept grant funds that may be offered to them. Too many times we have seen projects come to a halt due to an inadequate bond vote,” Johnson said.

Grant money can’t come in for the project until construction is done and the town is ready to make payments, said plant operator Dana Clement.

“You can’t put the cart before the horse,” Clement said. “You can’t even make an application to them until the project is complete. You have to spend the money and then they reimburse you.”

Pembroke’s side
A brief discussion on how the failed article would affect Pembroke, where most voters want the expansion to go through, came out of discussion on Pembroke’s sewer rates for the coming year at their Town Meeting on Saturday, March 15.

Pembroke Sewer Commissioner Harold Thompson said he could not comment at this time on what “Plan B” is for Pembroke, but said his commission is working with Allenstown to set up a public meeting with the two sewer commissions, the Department of Environmental Services and Allenstown selectmen.

More stringent rules Forthcoming studies on the Merrimack River may compel the plant’s upgrades in order to comply with possibly more stringent water cleansing standards, Clement said.

The state is also looking at tightening the standards for phosphorous and nitrogen concentrations in the Merrimack.

Should both of these scenarios come to pass in the next several years, the current plant is incapable of handling the new standards, Clement said. The expansion plans already drawn up would have accommodated such changes, he said.

Rodger said the Sewer Commission will continue its efforts to pass the expansion by continuing the public information sessions on the issue and creating a packet of information to go door-to-door with.

Development held up Both towns have commercial and residential developers waiting for sewer hook-ups, according to Rodger and Thompson.

The U.S. Army wants to put a training facility at a large parcel off of Route 106, Thompson said.

“I’ve got probably about $10 million worth of buildings wanting to go in Pembroke,” he said.

Rodger said several projects, including a retirement community and the possible expansion of the strip mall at 48 Allenstown Road, which includes a Family Dollar, Kutter’s Korner and Curves for Women, have been shelved in the past few years because of a lack of sewer capacity.

If the state steps in to mandate upgrades to comply with the new cleaner water standards, sewer users rates are going to go up, and there won’t be added capacity, Rodger said.

“We’re going to have to do it on the backs of sewer users, and we won’t get any flow out of it,” Rodger said. “To upgrade the plant just to satisfy new requirements, how much is that going to cost us? We might as well get some capacity out of it.”

Sewer expansion goes to voters again

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:07:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

Allenstown voters will once again consider spending tax dollars to improve its sewer plant.

Public meetings regarding a $15 million bond to expand the Suncook Wastewater Treatment Facility will continue after Allenstown selectmen and Budget Committee members put their stamp of approval on the drafted warrant article for the 2008 Town Meeting.

“It’s really a Catch 22, said Selectman Tom Gilligan, because the sewer expansion would end the block on hookups, bringing more development into town and thus expanding the tax base, he said.

“The town needs the revenue, but nobody wants to be hit with the full price tag,” Gilligan said, adding the natural increase of labor and raw materials as time goes on will only make the burden heavier.

The expansion has been a point of contention since the state Department of Environmental Services issued a moratorium on the plant in 2004, barring any additional sewer hookups to the plant.

Michael Trainque of Hoyle, Tanner and Associates, the engineering firm working on the expansion project, said the expansion is critical, with a water quality study on the Merrimack River currently in the works that may put more stringent requirements for water treatment in place.

“This is actually voting for the future. It’s for the next generation,” said Sewer Commissioner James Rodger at a public meeting at the Parish Hall in Allenstown on Monday, Jan. 7.

The problem, town officials said, is where to place the burden of the proposed 30-year bond.

While Pembroke residents – as a group, the plant’s largest user, accounting for over half of the plant’s flow – will pay 52 percent of the bond, the remaining $7.2 million that will rest with Allenstown taxpayers is still a sizeable cost and, in many minds, not fair to residents not hooked up to the town sewer lines.

Armand Verville, an Allenstown resident with a septic system, has spoken out against transferring the cost to taxpayers, as the current warrant article is written. Rather, he told sewer commissioners, he would like to see the ratepayers absorb most of the cost.

Sandy McKenny, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, voted not to recommend the new warrant article because, she said, she doesn’t feel the town is ready to absorb the cost.

Without the help of various grants the project qualifies for, taxpayers could see an increase on their bills of $1.67 per $1,000 of assessed value in the first year of the bond repayment, which would be a year after construction is complete, Trainque said.

For the owner of a home assessed at $200,000, that increase could amount to an extra $334 in that year’s tax bill.

The tax increase is compounded, McKenney said, by the fact that Bear Brook Park comprises 51 percent of the town and generates no tax revenue, along with several mobile home parks in town, leaving the brunt of the tax burden with a rather small group of residents.

Trainque said the expansion has a good shot of getting one or a combination of several federal and state grants which have the potential to knock millions off the price tag, but the applications can’t go through until Allenstown voters pass the entire amount of the bond.

Pembroke’s interest in this is greater in terms of development, said Pembroke Sewer Commissioner Harold Thompson at the public meeting. Currently, there are developers lined up for construction, he said.

Pembroke would have to decide how to fund its share of the project, for $7.8 million of the total costs, after Allenstown voters pass the expansion.

Pembroke would either have to schedule a special Town Meeting or wait until the 2009 elections to put the question of funding the expansion to voters.

“I’ve got enough commercial property stuff that I don’t think it would be hard to pass it on our side,” Thompson said.

Pembroke Selectman Cindy Lewis, also a liason to the Planning Board, agreed Pembroke is ready and likely willing to absorb the expansion costs, given the potential development and end to the moratorium it would bring.

“Pembroke would want the increase,” she said of taxes. “It’s going to be good for growth in both towns.”

With Pembroke’s larger tax base, the effect on taxpayers would be less than that of Allenstown, but no official numbers on that potential impact have been released.

Suncook sewer expansion costs questioned

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:08:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

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.