Water, sewer rates erupt

by Dan McClelland

Sewer and water rates for Tupper Lake water and sewer customers will increase by nearly 50% when customers get bills after June, following a public hearing and vote of the village board Wednesday.

The higher rates are designed to enable the village to pay for millions of dollars of improvements and upgrades to both systems undertaken in recent years. Improvements made to each system totaled more than $10 million each.

The rate increases will be the same for both village residents and town residents who enjoy village utilities. Town residents currently pay slightly more for their monthly water and sewer services.

“We've had two major projects going on- both water-side and sewer-side for the last few years,” Mayor Paul Maroun said after reading the public notice to start Wednesday's 5p.m. public hearing. The hearing preceded April's rescheduled village board meeting.

The recent capital improvements in both departments have included, the long search for new wells to replace the big lake as a primary source of village water, the drilling of two new wells beyond Pitchfork Pond, the village's meter/monitor project ordered by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, and major improvements to the sewer lift station on Demars Blvd., a new line between there and the Water Street treatment plant as well as many improvements there.

Mayor Paul Maroun, after reading the legal notice to introduce a local law to permit the rate increases at Wednesday's public hearing, said all the improvements in those departments have been “short-term financed to date. Now we're moving into the bond phase of the projects which means a significant chunk of money we have to re-pay each year.”

“Now we have to come up with the payments” for all this work “as it is not currently budgeted” in the monies we receive from our water and sewer rates. The village's coming bond payments for the water improvements will be $237,580 per year. The new sewer bond payment will be $274,500 each year.

“That means we have to increase the rates because we have to pay for all of this! We've been short-term financing the work. Now we are going to bond for 30 years!” explained the mayor.

The monthly rate increases will be $10.80 for water and $10 for sewer.

The rate increases will be equal for both village and town customers, Superintendent Mark Robillard noted.

He said the two village departments “now have a lot of long-term debt” following the recent years of upgrade work. “And now we have to pay the debt...it's pretty black and white!”

Trustee Ron LaScala, who oversees Mr. Robillard's departments, said much of the work was required by state agencies through their mandates in matters of water and sewer. He listed the meter project and the development of the new wells as two projects forced on the village by state order.

“We can't tell the state 'no.' We have to follow what they say. We have to follow their mandates because that's the law.”

“I know my phone is going to blow up because people are going to tell me you are raising my sewer and water rates but we still can't drink our water and in some cases the water looks worse than when we started!”

He was referring to the blasts of brown water people occasionally see when they turn on their taps caused by a high percentage of iron in the wall water. The presence of iron started a short time after the new wells went on line. Also of concern to water customers are the continually failing quarterly water tests by the state department of health.

He said neither are the village's fault. “We have done everything we can. We've hired the best people to figure out these problems and this is where we are at.”

“We were told there would be no iron” in our well water supply before the wells were developed. “Now there is an iron issue!”

“It's going to cost us more money to solve that, but at the end of the day our rates are still cheaper than most municipalities around us.”

In Saranac Lake, for example, where charges are based on the size of the house, owners of three bedroom houses currently see a charge of about $99 per month for water and $78 for sewer. That information was supplied by the mayor at Wednesday's hearing.

“We've held the line (on our rates) for a long time,” Mr. Robillard noted.

The mayor said all of Tupper's rates are flat, whereas in nearby communities like Saranac Lake, many water customers are on meters and pay based on usage.

“I don't like raising the rates, but it's still cheap for what we are getting,” he added.

He said, too, if in the future the village receives grants or other monies that can help it pay down these bonds, there's a possibility that rates could fall in the future if that happens.

Although most of the sewer improvements are completed, the village still has more work to do to solve problems in its water system.

“And we're not done yet. This is not the last rate hike we will see,” commented Mr. LaScala.

“Your cable rates go up every year. Your insurance rates increase every year.” It's what we see each year, he stated.

Trustee Jason McClain countered, however, saying that utility cost increases are different. “You can switch some of those other things to avoid the increases. You can change internet services. You can switch your insurance plan and save money for a few years. But when it comes to sewer and water services, we have no other options.”

He agreed with Mr. LaScala that the board members will likely face criticism on the rate hike. “People will be paying $21 more each month crappy water!”

Free Press Publisher Dan McClelland quickly calculated that the new rates represent nearly a 50% hike in water and sewer rates for village users- up from $43.20 to $64 per dwelling unit. Apartment owners who pay for a lot of units “are going to pay a considerable chunk of money more each month” for those village services.

“It looks like rents are going up in Tupper Lake,” commented Trustee McClain.

“By about $50 per month,” added the publisher.

The rates for town residents in water and sewer districts will go from $28.40 per month for water to $39.20 and for sewer from $27.20 to $37.20 each month.

The cost of the well project was about $10 million- $3 million of which was grant money to the village and about $7 million in no-interest loans which now have to be paid back through the new bonds.

Some of that money includes the meter installation project which is about half done and which has cost the village so far about $1.5 million.

Trustee McClain wondered why the entire well system couldn't have been metered for the water draw at the well site, rather than having to meter every customer at their property.

“The reason the state wants those meters at individual houses is because the entire” push to move the village to a ground water-based system was under a water conservation program,” Trustee LaScala told him. “Even though we don't charge customers by the gallon, at the end of this project we're supposed to have a guy drive around and read meters and quarterly report our usage!”

“If the gallons don't match up” then there's a leak somewhere.” Then it will be up to the village to find that leak.

“It would have helped us a few years ago when we had an individual on Stetson Road who was making a pond using village water,” Trustee LaScala told his colleagues. “We had guys working sometimes overtime looking for a leak” when someone was just drawing village water for their new pond.

He argued: “this is when those meters can be a useful tool!”

Trustee McClain figured water conservation shouldn't be such a priority in sections of the country where water is plentiful like here in the Adirondacks. It should be a top priority in drought-prone places like the American southwest, he reasoned, however.

Trustee LaScala said it costs a lot of money for communities to produce treated drinking water and it makes good sense to try to conserve it whenever possible.

Mayor Maroun said the reason for the meter project was that the DEC wouldn't permit the village to draw the well water without a water conservation program in place.

Trustee LaScala remembered as a rookie trustee eight years ago at a meeting with a state official when he and the mayor were discussing the potential well project, they were assured meters wouldn't be required if the village switched to wells as a primary water source.

“So we all moved forward with the well project and we get almost through the entire well project” and all of a sudden we were told we had to do meters because that was all about water conservation.

He said the state put this mandate on the village and held the well project hostage unless a meter program was embraced.

Mr. LaScala said a better alternative for the village would have been to keep drawing water out of Tupper Lake and upgrade the Moody treatment station to a micro-filtration one to produce clean water that met state standards. He said the state wouldn't provide money for such a project, and instead pushed the village to develop the wells.

Trustee McClain wondered how much the village would have to spent to construct a micro-filtration plant to treat the water from the big lake.

It was estimated by Mr. Robillard that the cost would have been approximately the same as developing the wells, to which Trustee LaScala added: “except we wouldn't have an iron issue right now.”

More water department expense lies ahead as village officials try to find a way to treat the iron or remove it from the well water.

Mr. LaScala noted too that the village saw considerable expense rerouting the water from the Moody filtration plant to the new well site on the opposite end of the community. All that expense could have been avoided if the village would have just modernized the Moody plant or replaced it with a more sophisticated one.

The upgrades to the sewer system were all necessary, it was noted, just to extend the life of it. Since its construction there have been major rebuilds of the village sewer system every 30 years or so, Superintendent Robillard noted in the discussion.

“There's a lot more to this ball game than the $10 rate increases in each department,” figured Deputy Mayor Leon LeBlanc. “We have to curtail our spending! Because rate payers are seeing everything go up in price.” He said what revenues that are available to the village, it must live with. “That's the bottom line, guys!”

“We can't hire any more people. Every time we hire someone that's an extra $100,000 in salary and benefits! -And it's coming out of our rates!”

“We have to curtail spending wherever we can,” he asserted, adding there is new debt in both departments right now “that would scare you.”

Mr. LaScala didn't disagree with him, but said that the debt now before the village is legitimate infrastructure improvement debt.

Mr. LeBlanc said he believes there were a number of mistakes made by the board along the way, saying although the village is now going to have to live with this debt, “I am embarrassed.”

“I am embarrassed,” he repeated, “because now we are going to have to tell the public we are raising their rates!”

“I guess it is what it is.”

A bit of a sparring match began between the deputy mayor and Trustee LaScala.

“You are entitled to be embarrassed,” Mr. LaScala told Mr. LeBlanc. “I'm not embarrassed because I am trying to provide clean, drinking water for my community, for the future and for the growth of our community.”

“I would be more embarrassed about our emergency services situation than about our sewer and water.” He was referring to the current lack of active village police officers. See related story this week.

“When our people can't drink the water, I'm embarrassed,” the deputy mayor replied.

“We have invested thousands and thousands of dollars into our water system and you still can't drink the water,” he asserted.

Trustee LaScala questioned Mr. LeBlanc's effort to help the board find answers to the village's water woes.

“Have you been to any of our meetings, Leon? I haven't seen you at any of the water and sewer development meetings over the years,” Trustee LaScala told him.

“You can be embarrassed but you haven't been part of the process!” he scolded Mr. LeBlanc.

“What I hear at our meetings, I take it from there. We still have a problem,” retorted Mr. LeBlanc.

“If you are that concerned about our water problems, show up at the meetings,” replied Mr. LaScala.

“Ron, I have other things to take care of,” said Mr. LeBlanc.

“We're doing the best we can with the mandates we have from the state,” noted Mayor Maroun. “Absolutely, our sewer system needed the upgrades!

Mr. Robillard noted the original sewer plant was built in 1959. It was rebuilt in 1989 “and we were at that 30-year mark again.”

Mr. LaScala said he was proud of the job he has done directing the sewer and water department since he took village office eight years ago. He said many infrastructure improvements have been tackled.

“I remember in those early days, I was on Pleasant Ave. during a rain storm and we had raw sewage pumping out onto the street and onto our taxpayers' front lawns.”

“We took action and that's not happening anymore. I'm embarrassed about other things going on in the village right now, but water and sewer is not one of them.”

“Had we known what we know now, we would have gone back to the lake” for our water, Mark Robillard said of the Moody plant redo.

“But again, the department of health, in order to get funding, was pushing us to ground water!”

In all, it was noted, the village received over $3 million in grants towards the $10 million in water infrastructure spending these past half dozen years.

Trustee LaScala remembered shortly after joining the village board they were weighing whether or not wells should be dug or a modernization of the Moody Plant was the way. “I wanted to go to the lake for our water and Carrie Tuttle, who was working with us at the time with the Development Authority of the North Country” told us quite clearly the state was not going to let that happen.

“It wasn't a matter of what this board wanted, we weren't given the option” of building a modern plant to clean the lake water.

“This is one of the bad parts of being in government,” Paul Maroun lamented of the big rate hike.

“I hope five years down the road people here will be happy, because we have systems that have been upgraded and which should be good for another 20 or 25 years.”

Mark Robillard said he thought the past estimates to rebuild the Moody plant so it produced clean water were about $9 million. He said the well project was about half of that at the time and there were state funds to help accomplish it.

“When the state mandates something, you don't have a choice,” Mr. LaScala said of the board's decision six years ago to develop the new wells.

Jason McClain wondered then why the state doesn't take responsibility when its mandates don't work.

“They don't...that's just the way it works!” declared the mayor.

“Here's how the states works,” added Trustee LaScala. “The state spend $35 million to build a new ski lodge in Lake Placid. It has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years in Lake Placid with ORDA, while the poor people of Tupper Lake scrounge to get clean drinking water!”

“What does the state tells us? It's a mandate...deal with it!”

He said there were few people in power in Albany “that get” what poor communities like Tupper Lake have to deal with.

The trustee said, however, that we have leaders in Assemblyman Billy Jones and Senator Dan Stec who do get it and fight hard for us. “Unfortunately they are in the clear minority!”