CENTERTON -- Centerton will soon connect a sewer line to Decatur's wastewater treatment plant, which may stabilize sewer costs to residents, said Frank Holzkamper, utilities director.
Centerton sends its wastewater to be treated in Bentonville.
Since 2010, Bentonville has raised Centerton's wastewater rates five times, or 125 percent, which has required Centerton to raise rates, Holzkamper said.
The last increase was 9 percent in January, according to a Centerton Water and Sewer letter sent to residents earlier this week.
Centerton charges $7.99 per 1,000 gallons of water used. Bentonville takes $7.87 of that, and the remaining pennies aren't enough to cover operation and maintenance costs, Holzkamper said.
The Centerton Water and Sewer Department has nearly 5,000 homes, schools and businesses connected to its water mains. To read a history of the department and how its water and sewer services grew with the city, go to www.cwsdonline.com/Forms/ CWSDHistory.pdf.
Decatur will charge $3.10 per 1,000 gallons of water used, according to James Boston, Decatur utilities director. Decatur officials approached Centerton about providing the service after a Simmons Foods plant closed.
Rosetta Construction of Springfield, Mo., will build the nearly 13-mile pipe line to Decatur. The $7.5 million bid doesn't include engineering, construction services, easement preparation and acquisition, permits and other costs, according to Holzkamper.
The project will be paid for with $10 million in municipal bonds sold last week, Holzkamper said.
Centerton will pay $6.19 per 1,000 gallons of wastewater once the line is finished. That price includes the treatment cost to Decatur and the loan repayment, according to Holzkamper.
Construction should start later this month or in early October, and take about a year to complete.
"We anticipate flowing our wastewater to Decatur by summer of next year," Holzkamper said.
Building a plant in Centerton would have been ideal, but wasn't an option as the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality no longer issues discharge permits to individual cities, Holzkamper said.
Connecting to the Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority treatment plant wasn't a viable option either, as the rates would continue to increase, Holzkamper said. He estimated rates could reach as high as $12 per 1,000 gallons treated if officials chose the authority.
"By going to Decatur, we're able to cut down the cost of the treatment," he said. "We will still be less than what we're paying now, with the loan, with the treatment cost, with everything. We feel like we'll be able to get our rates stabilized."
The connection also benefits Decatur as its treatment plant is operating at less than half its capacity, Boston said.
The plant was designed for a 2.2 million gallon average daily flow, and it's at about 1 million gallons, he said.
"I'm excited about this venture," Boston said. "I'm excited that the two communities had this opportunity. It's going to help them, and it's definitely going to help us."
Centerton customers will not immediately see a rate decrease, nor will all the city's wastewater go immediately to the Decatur plant.
The city's most recent contract with Bentonville will not expire until 2018. Centerton must notify Bentonville officials one year before service termination. There's an option to buy out the remainder of the contract at $39,000 a year, or Centerton can decrease its flow to the Bentonville treatment plant until the contract expires, said Mike Bender, Bentonville public works director.
Bender said he hasn't been notified of Centerton exercising either option.
Bentonville will lose about $1 million in annual revenue from the loss of the 500,000 million gallons a day Centerton sends to be treated, Bender said.
Bentonville sends about 1.8 million gallons, or a third of its wastewater, a day to be treated at the authority plant and treats the remaining two-thirds at its own plant, according to Bender. Bentonville's wastewater comprises about 95 percent of the authority's flow, he said.
The operations and maintenance cost is based on flow percentage. It would assist Bentonville if Centerton chose to connect to the authority, too. Though Bentonville would still lose city revenue, its payments to the authority wouldn't be as high, Bender said.
The Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority opened its treatment plant in 2010 and is designed to treat wastewater from throughout the region.
"It's a new era for Centerton," Holzkamper said.
"We are doing everything we can to keep rates down and continue helping for Centerton's prosperity. We knew if we choose either of the other two options, basically the growth would shut down, and we might have even seen an exodus because you couldn't afford those high rates," he said. "We worked really long and hard on this deal, and we're glad it's coming to fruition."
General News on 09/10/2014