Monday’s St. Clairsville council meeting via teleconference seemed to finally confirm the direction the town is going to take in terms of its water system.
That direction is away from the reservoir and toward the purchase of bulk ground water.
While the options of purchasing from both Belmont County and Martins Ferry have been discussed previously and were mentioned Monday, the consensus was that the county option was the easier and less expensive option.
The problem is the county is five years away from being able to meet the town’s present needs of 600,000 gallons per day. That number will likely decrease once unmetered usage becomes metered and the town goes about fixing the major leaks. But at present, the best the county can provide from the current booster station hooked to the St. C. distribution network is 325,000 gallons per day. Engineer Jeff Vaughn, who has worked closely with the city on devising a plan to move forward, did note that an in-ground booster on the east end of town near the Eagles’ building could be reconnected and provide an additional 250,000 gallons per day.
“In the long run, the plant would be retired. In its present form, it can’t continue too much longer,” Vaughn said in a response to Councilwoman Linda Jordan’s question about the plant’s fate should the city purchase bulk water from another entity.
That booster, however, isn’t capable of supplying that amount long term. Jordan then inquired about a potential increase in need, depending on what becomes of St. Clair Commons. Currently only a half-filled nursing facility is in that section of town. Demand, however, has the potential to increase drastically in the future depending on what else is built.
“Let’s assume it will be developed,” Vaughn said. “The idea would then be to have the water plant’s booster station to provide 100 percent of the city’s flow, and we could retire that east end booster as the county’s system should be up to snuff at that point.”
Until the county can supply 100 percent of the city’s needs, St. Clairsville would have to make use of its current surface-water system, which likely includes some costly repairs in addition to the leakage and distribution system fixes.
Ferry Says Why Wait
Unlike the county, Martins Ferry can more than supply the entirety of St. Clairsville’s water needs–both present and future–right now … mostly.
All that’s needed is roughly five miles of line, a pumping station, and a water tank. But that won’t take nearly as long to complete and would require far less investment by St. Clairsville than sinking millions into a water plant it plans on retiring anyway. It could turn its attention to distribution and wastewater. Nor will it take the estimated $12-15 million that Aqua Ohio representatives theorized during Monday’s meeting.
“We don’t want to take their system,” Martins Ferry mayor John Davies said. “We want to sell them water and sell to them at a reduced rate to where they can add a little on the top to help maintain their infrastructure. That will help St. C. bolster its income a bit and shore up its needs. I think that’s what’s best for all.”
Davies noted with Ferry as the delivering entity, his town would have to be the one to apply for the financing.
Neither Davies nor Water Superintendent Bill Suto has an exact cost for that potential project, but they do have a ballpark figure that comes in at less than $12-15 million.
“We’d need five miles worth of line, a pump station, and a tank,” Suto said. “The station would be down in the Barton area. I don’t know the exact price, but it would be considerably cheaper to do that than it would be to redo their water plant to operate with a reservoir.”
Suto estimates running a distribution line will cost roughly $1 million per mile. Then the cost of the tank and pump station and likely land acquisition in the Barton area to house the station, need factored in. He’s guessing somewhere in the $7-10 million range.
But What About Rates?
True, the $7-10 million is more than the ballpark $50,000 that Vaughn theorized it would cost to get the east end pump station up and running. Plus the main booster already at the water plant was a joint venture with the county and was paid for through public works dollars.
The new plant certainly isn’t cheap; $60 million of the total $72 million project is for water with the remaining $12 million going toward the wastewater system. But the Belmont County Commissioners, in anticipation of gaining the funding to do the massive upgrades, increased water and sewer rates already for county customers to account for this. County officials said tha the anticipatory move should mean no additional rate increases are needed to cover the project.
Then there are the water rates. Davies said to put things into perspective, Aqua Ohio mentioned a minimum charge of $26 per month. It didn’t say how many gallons that minimum accounted for, nor was the cost for extra usage presented. For Martins Ferry residents, the cost is $25 for the first 2,500 gallons.
St. Clairsville residents currently pay $11.49 per 1,000 gallons for the first 2,000, then $12.49 per 1,000 for the next 2,000. For 2,500 gallons of usage, that’d be $29.23 (First 2k gallons for $22.98 plus $6.25 for the next 500). Conversely, county water customers pay a minimum bill of $20 and then $5.71 for every 1,000 gallons used. So, if you use 2,500 gallons, you’re looking at a bill of $34.28 ($20 minimum plus $14.28 for total 2.5k gallons used)
Additional costs
The funding for the Ferry option would likely come from a combination of any available grants, plus low to zero interest loans available for such projects. There’s also no way of knowing how much of said loan could be made forgivable.
But the payback would be similar in fashion to the water debt payments Ferry customers pay monthly to pay off the upgrades to their water plant.
“The cost of the loan would be passed on over a number of years to the city,” Davies said. “It will be similar to the water debt we have. The plant upgrades cost $20 million spread out over a 25-year period, which amounts to $9.58 per month in water debt cost. Again, just ballparking here, but if their project costs between $7-10 million, you’re probably looking at half that amount, potentially less depending on grants and forgivable portions of loans.”
Davies envisions a similar agreement to what Martins Ferry has with Tri-County Water. The line Tri-County receives water from has a master meter and Tri-County pays a bulk rate for the total consumption. Tri-County then sets the rates it sells to its individual customers.
For most municipal and county government entities, water service is the one department where it’s possible to turn a profit for the city. The service and safety departments aren’t designed to make money. Davies knows how important that is and doesn’t want to see St. Clairsville lose it.
“You use a master meter, and they can sell water to their customers,” Davies said. “That way, everyone keeps their identity. It’s like Bill (Suto) said, ‘Your water, your sewer and wastewater, that’s the backbone of your village or city. It’s really the only chance you have to make any money. The rest, you’re lucky if you break even.’”
Same Source, Different Method
As mentioned above, the county can provide 325,000 gallons per day right now to St. Clairsville. The east end booster can supply another 250,000.
Martins Ferry? Slightly more.
“Right now, just off the top of my head, we’re pumping at around 40 percent of our total capacity,” Suto said. “We’re doing more than two million gallons a day, and we have the capacity for nearly five million. Once St. Clairsville gets their water leaks and what not situated, I’m guessing they will need around a half million gallons a day, at present. That’s nothing for our system.”
Martins Ferry and Belmont County pull their water supply from the same underground aquifer. The main difference between the two then lies in how the water is treated prior to distribution.
Both entities are dealing with hard water. Ferry treats the water it pulls with ozonation and filtration, helping to cut the hardness in half and removing both iron and manganese from the supply. The County uses a different method.
“St. C. will get best water in Belmont County,” Davies said. “With us and St. C. being the only two cities in the county, we want to help them all we can. We want to help everybody, but waterwise, they seem to have the biggest problem.”
