Few attend wastewater meeting

— Fewer than a dozen Gravette citizens, other than city officials and employees, attended a public meeting last Tuesday night to voice opinions about the Gravette wastewater treatment plant project.

At issue was the Sept. 13 deadline the city faced in making a decision on which sewer improvement plan to accept to meet mandated phosphorus and nitrate discharge limits.

The critical issue is a loan of up to $9 million which the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has been reserving for Gravette to fund the project in which the city’s engineers, McGoodwin, Williams and Yates (McGWY) have been involved for more than two years.

The loan has a locked-in interest rate of 2.75 percent. That guarantee was to expire Monday, Sept. 13.

Representatives of McGWY, several weeks ago, presented three options for the project, two of which utilized part of the existing wastewater treatment plant, the other consisted of constructing a line to Decatur to utilize its new plant.

At the request of the city, McGWY later presented a fourth option which increased the estimated cost to more than $12 million.

McGWY representatives also presented two other options which would require citizens to approve an additional city sales tax, at least one cent. The city’s present sales tax rate is two cents.

These original cost factors would have increased the average customer monthly bill of $20.25 up to as much as $65.66 for an estimated 4,000 gallons.

If voters approved a sales tax, the monthly bill could have dropped to as little as $29.31 for 4,000 gallons.

A representative of Mc-GWY reiterated the above information to those present and explained that delaying a decision would result in the higher interest rate.

Abandoning the plans and starting over with another firm presented no guarantees grants would be available and would require hiring another firm to begin the application processes which can take months involving various state/federal agencies, it was noted.

Alderman Byron Warren opened the meeting reading a prepared statement outlining his and alderman Terry King’s trip to Maine to research other options which would be less expensive for the city and its citizens. He noted he and other city officials had met with Rural Development Authority officials who suggested a grant might be possible to help finance the project and that he had visited with officials in Little Rock who indicated it was time to make a decision. His final words suggested “cutting our ties with the engineering firm, McGoodwin, Williams and Yates and exploring possibly hiring another firm” and “Rather than shipping our waste to a neighboring town, I think we need to keep our processing local in order to have control over cost and operation.”

After about two hours of discussion, questions and answers, all of which have been covered in earlier Eagle Observer reports, the meeting broke up to await a decision of the Council at a later meeting.

Council members Byron Warren, Terry King and Forrest White were present. Not in attendance were aldermen Chris Beller and Brent Cannon.

News, Pages 1 on 09/15/2010