Eastsound Sewer and Water District Commissioners Rollie Sauer and Greg Ayers met with concerned Bonnie Brae residents last week to discuss the deadlines set by the sewer district for sewer hookup fees and monthly charges to the OPAL affordable housing neighborhood.
The 24 homes off Enchanted Forest road are currently on septic systems. With plans to install a main sewer line in the area (funded by a county grant), the sewer district is laboring to provide side sewer lines into the Bonnie Brae homes, and to arrange financing for those costs.
On February 18 of this year, sewer district commissioners approved incremental increases of $700 per year, beginning July 1 this year, for each home, or equivalent resident unit (ERU) for connection to the district’s sewer system in Eastsound.
At the May 18 meeting, Ayers gave an estimate of the sewer service connection charges to on-site systems with a pump in the septic tank at $7,430, with the following breakdown:
- Permit fee o f $500
- Facility [Connection] Charge $6,000
- Pump vault and electrical control panel $750
- District labor to retro-fit $180
Trenching and electrical charges are estimated to run between $1,000 and $1,500 for the trenching and between $300 and $500 for the electrical wiring work. The total estimated charges then vary between $8,700 and $9,900.
After presenting connection steps and two financing options – a renewable 5-year semi-annual installment plan or a deferral policy for low-income property owners — Ayers and Sauer heard out the concerned homeowners.
Ayers walked the meeting attendees through the process following sign-up:
- District personnel empties your tank
- Trench is dug
- Pump installed with new electrical box
“Once you’ve connected there are no expenses from your tank through the waste treatment system, only the monthly fee,” Ayers said. He advised the group that the district will be responsible to maintain the system, “if your pump goes out, or the alarm goes off, or there is ‘bubbling up’ in your yard.”
Homeowners will be responsible for any costs incurred “inside the house and the [septic] tank.”
Didier Gincig asked what guarantees exist for the payment plans. Ayers said the agreement is “like a mortgage; it can’t go away, the rate is fixed, you can prepay it. Once executed, the board can’t take [the agreement] back; it is recorded against your property with the county.”
The deferral payment program is for five years at a fixed rate, and can be renewed, with interest rate adjustments every 5 years for 15 years. Ayers quoted a four percent rate on principle and accumulated interest, but later in the meeting pledged to work with this fellow sewer district commissioners to lower the interest rate to one percent on the installment plan.
The Sewer Commissioners acknowledged the shortcomings in communication about sewer hookup with the OPAL Commons neighborhood and now Bonnie Brae and asked, “How do we mitigate the concerns you may have”
They assured the homeowners that they could lock in the $6,000 charge by signing up for the installment or deferral plan, to begin “within a certain period.” later defined as one year. When asked to pin down when the monthly charges would start, Sauer said, “We’d like it to be when we hook you up.”
The Commissioners plan to pass an agreement next Tuesday, to lock in the $6,000 commitment for connecting into the system.“Until you pay the [connection charge] or sign up for one of the two [payment] programs, you don’t lock in the rate, “ Ayers said.
He explained the science behind the sewer district commissioners’ decision to speed up the connection process. He quoted a study that looked at well and septic densities, and determined that the Blanchard Road area and Bonnie Brae have the highest density of wells and septic fields.
“When you’re turning on your tap, you’re collecting water from your septic system. There’s caffeine, Lipitor, nitrates in it, we don’t know if your septic tank field has failed. There is no way to objectively measure if your leech field has failed,” Ayers said.“When you can hook up to a central waste treatment facility, you should do it. It’s your water.”
Christopher Evans spoke at length about the failures of the sewer district to communicate with the residents of Bonnie Brae.
He noted that he had previously been told in a meeting with sewer commissioners that the homeowners would not be required to hook into the district’s system until 2023, or in the event that the residential septic system fails. He said that there had been over two years, between 2007 and 2009 when there was no communication between the sewer district and Bonnie Brae.
“Now after a couple of years of not hearing from the sewer district, we get a letter dated March 14, saying that basically within 10 days Wilson engineering is coming in to do a survey to put in side sewer lines.
“This particular letter caught everyone completely off guard.We’re thinking about our kids’ education, about the non-profits we’re involved in, about securing or keeping jobs, so the letter … felt like a sneak attack back in on this issue from Eastsound Sewer.”
Ayers explained that the survey didn’t involve any cost to the homeowners and said, “I thought it would be polite to let you know we’re surveying your area. … I’m sorry the communication hasn’t been better, or happened more often.I called this meeting because I wanted to have this discussion. I wanted to send someone to survey the property to see if it could help the homeowners.”
Evans added that the San Juan Conservation District had provided a grant to secure stormwater runoff. “That’s an area that directly impacts the sewer line; it’s projects like that that could be coordinated or overlaid, possibly minimizing excavation costs.
“If we seem on the defensive it’s because people were under the impression we’d have more discussion, more of a timeline,” Evans said.
“People are looking for a chance to come up with our own funding and financing rather than be indebted to the district that is imposing a service on us. Our neighborhood is in a unique possibility of being a shining example of what could be done with cooperation; we’re in a unique position to secure grants and loans.”
Ayers then said that he would try “to get the board [to] dropped from four percent to something tied to prime; we as a group will have to decide.” If the homeowner can secure less expensive financing fro another source, they can pay off the loan to the sewer district at any time, Ayers assured the group.
He asked if the lowest monthly fee of $37 would truly place a hardship among the homeowners and learned that the cost is significant for many Bonnie Brae residents.
One Bonnie Brae resident said, “This has been an informative meeting,I’ve been encouraged by ideas and am grateful to everybody who’s said things.
“I understand where your requirements and fees and policies are coming from. I know you’re doing the best. But each homeowner still has to figure out how to come up with the financial end of this ad there’s a lot of fear around that.
“I’ve never been in debt in my life until I had a mortgage, I really don’t look forward to paying interest, and I don’t have the money to pay it up front, and I’m not a slacker either, I’ve worked hard.
“I’m not asking you to make exceptions for individuals, but the bottom line is we each have to come to our own homes and figure out a way to make this work. We’re the ones that have to figure out how to fit this into our lives now. How it’s happening is you’re imposing a hardship on us. I respect all my neighbors; it’s an amazing group of people. And it’s a difficult thing you’ve come up with.”
Anita Holladay said, “Either way it works out to $90 or $100 a month. At some point it has to be paid, so it is huge.”
Ayers said, “We’re doing everything we can to minimize in economic times what is not economically desirable.”
Several of the homeowners then expressed their environmental reservations.
Kim Secunda spoke about the current septic system and stormwater runoff contributing to the aquifer recharge area. With hookup to the sewer lines, the effluent will then go out into East Sound, she noted.
Danna Kinsey said that there was much confusion about the aquifer recharge area. “Essentially, we know we have issues with that and this process — if it’s taking water out of the system …. and sending it out into the sound — it’s strange.”
Ayers said that the district was “open to hear how to get effluent back into the aquifer,” and Kinsey responded, “That’s what leech fields do.”
Ayers said, “With hook-up there is the opportunity to plant as much vegetation as you can find in leech field.”
Secunda then asked, “Then what’s going to water the plants? We’ve seen it over and over with cedar trees. We need to get a large picture because the impact of what you’re doing is a big deal. What’s going to happen when we don’t have water in drain fields?”
Ayers responded, “I guess it’s a tradeoff between water and contaminated water.”
Caressa Thorson said that many Bonnie Brae residents have vegetable gardens next to the OPAL offices near the corner of Lovers Lane and Enchanted Forest Road. She said that the garden benefits from an artesian well and five acres of designated wetland in between. She added, “We are a community conscious of what we flush, what we wash our dishes with; it seems as detrimental to remove our water from the aquifer as to use water with some nitrates in it.”
She inquired if it was possible to combine residences in the connection charge, and was told that although Eastsound Water Users Association provides for fractional charges, the sewer district does not.
Mathew Chasanoff asked what would happen if people didn’t sign up to connect. Ayers replied, “If we put in place everything we can to help you connect, I put my faith in people to do what is under the social norm for the area in which you live…. It ranges from where your yard gets trenched to my faith in man, somewhere in that range.”
The board of Eastsound Sewer District will meet to decide the details of the plans on Tuesday, May 24 at 4:30 p.m. in the Sewer District offices off North Beach Road by the airport. (Code for gate entry is posted above the entrance keypad).
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We compared several sewer districts in the country and found Eastsound to be the most expensive by far. The district wants to create infrastructure funds on the backs of those who can least afford it. It takes “affordable” out of “affordable housing” for many residents. What can be done?
Secunda then asked, “Then what’s going to water the plants? We’ve seen it over and over with cedar trees. We need to get a large picture because the impact of what you’re doing is a big deal. What’s going to happen when we don’t have water in drain fields?”
Ayers responded, “I guess it’s a tradeoff between water and contaminated water.”
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!??? They’re willing to trade off our trees and vegetation, bird and bat and bee habitat, bank anchoring, our recharge system, our biodiversity, for clean water the only way they can see it??! NO! This is gravely flawed and wrong and far-reaching in the most damaging ways. Not only will it kill mature stands of cedar, alder, and other trees needing water, but it will break the backs of the poor working people who just happen to have to live in Eastsound, because that’s the only place that there IS affordable housing? We the people here have a different vision of how our UGA can be, and we could be the model of creative and innovative cooperation in this. Is this really all about the money? It’s looking more and more so.
What can we do? Educate the public about what’s happening and the alternatives that have worked, and why, and then if our county officials won’t listen to low-income residents and the people of Eastsound who love our critical habitats and aquifers here, we can file for a Petition for Review and go to court. The short-sighted model for our Urban Growth Area is appallingly dreadful. We must fight for the alternatives that can save our village.
Greg Ayers comments that, “When you’re turning on your tap, you’re collecting water from your septic system.” Well water testing by UWU, Inc. has not been able to show a correlation of the presents of nitrates in well water samples to area septic systems. Ayers indicates that substances such as caffeine are found in septic effluent and if be found in well water samples tested by EWU, Inc. would conclusively indicate that the elevated nitrates were the result of area septic systems. That levels of caffeine, a persistent chemical compound was, according to Paul Camin below the levels that can be measured by their test instruments, is at odds with Mr. Ayers statement.
According to the article,”He(Ayers) explained the science behind the sewer district commissioners’ decision to speed up the connection process. He quoted a study that looked at well and septic densities, and determined that the Blanchard Road area and Bonnie Brae have the highest density of wells and septic fields. This is a reference to the Chasin study commissioned by Eastsound Sewer & Water District. The septic density recommendations in the study are from another study done in rural Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania’s typography and geology are not the same as Eastsound, but this fragment from the study is continually passed of as having direct application to Eastsound.
What the study does say specifically about conditions in Eastsound is that the likelihood of sewer effluent entering the Eastsound aquifer and, therefore getting into well water that our drinking water comes from is nil. Impermeable hard pan and clay that was compressed by the glaciers in the last ice age compressed is what over lies the aquifer (think of the pressure laminate on your counter tops-when was the last time you had water in your drawers because your counter top leaked?).
The study’s highest recommendation for action to be taken be Eastsound Sewer & Water District was to protect the aquifer recharge areas (identified as “critical habitat”) which lie in sandy areas on hills to the west of Eastsound and fractured shale on the hills to the east of Eastsound.