June 8, 2010
Tuesday’s Water News: Small Towns Vexed By Sewage Issues
Small towns are having serious issues when it comes to sewage, particularly in Mabton, Washington. Officials claim that many systems are 5, 10, or even 15 years out of date, leading to accidents. Sewer rate hikes are on the horizon for many of these towns, but that alone will not cover the cost. Many towns are applying for grants to ease the problem as well.
Headlines
An unknown amount of sewage spilled into the Cedar River in Seattle, Washington after two clogs in two days. After officials unclogged the pipe, buildup caused it to be clogged again the very next day. It is still unknown what the cause of the clogs were.
The citizens of Cheektowaga, New York are fed up with the crumbling wastewater infrastructure in their town. After heavy rains over the weekend, many of the citizen’s basements were flooded with sewage.
Stimulus Spotlight
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been put to good use in West Virginia, according to officials. $139 million, including 61 million from the ARRA, has been spent on 39 projects throughout the state to improve or build wastewater facilities.
Thanks to the economic stimulus Las Vegas is seeing construction on two large water infrastructure projects. Those projects are a $447 million dollar water intake system and a $257 million dollar wastewater treatment plant.
Sewer Rate News
Bay City, Michigan
Pilot Mountain, North Carlonia
Sioux City, Iowa
St. Albans, Vermont
Robin said,
June 8, 2010 at 9:46 pm
I must be old school because I would expect that all of those taxes collected from private citizens were actually going for infrastructure maintenance and development. I assumed that municipal governments were looking after their own communities with long term plans via planning commissions and committees.
The last thing I expected was contestants competing for the pot of gold they were mandated to ante into. School me, please.
bengann said,
June 9, 2010 at 10:18 am
The short answer in many cases is that municipal water and sewer rates do not provide enough money on their own to address the needed maintenance of these systems. And even if municipalities do dramtically increase their rates it usually still isn’t enough to address the myriad of federal and state standards for clean, safe water. Thus communities need to do as much as they can to keep their water and sewer systems in a state of good repair but they also need a federal partner to help finance required maintenance.
Robin said,
June 9, 2010 at 11:22 am
Thanks Bengann for that info…where does the federal partner get the funds to finance required maintenance? In Michigan, would one of those financial partners be MSHDA by chance?
Robin said,
June 19, 2010 at 10:37 am
If communities cannot afford to develop a maintenance plan (including the myriad of new regulations) and have to turn to State and Federal for financial partners, does that not mean too many of our local dollars are getting out of our hands? Or, funds for infrastructure are being funneled elsewhere.
I know your aim is to get your guys back to work and it’s adventageous for you guys to keep things just as they are. Reaping the stimulus reward would seem short-lived to me.