FORT SMITH -- City officials have told the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency it is not raising sewer rates any more to pay for requirements of a federal consent decree but will pay what it can afford, which is about $200 million less than the original cost estimate.
Fort Smith sewer customers pay 2.2 percent of their median household income on their sewer bills, surpassing the EPA's maximum affordability rate of 2 percent of median household income, City Administrator Carl Geffken said in a news release.
"We drew a red line," Geffken said in the release. "We said the city of Fort Smith is not raising residents' sewer rates any higher and, by their own guidelines, the EPA should not force us to."
With the current sewer rates, which have been raised 167 percent over three years since the consent decree went into effect in 2015, the city is estimated to generate $200 million to $256 million over the 12 years of the consent decree. In the past three years, the city has spent more than $100 million on consent decree work, the release said.
The consent decree was signed by Fort Smith, the EPA, U.S. Justice Department and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and was filed in federal court. In the decree, the city agreed to make various improvements to its wastewater system over 12 years to eliminate sanitary system overflows and fix other problems that have violated the federal Clean Water Act for years.
A delegation of city officials and consultants for the city met with EPA Region 6 officials in Dallas on Aug. 10, the release said. During the meeting, city officials proposed modifications to the decree.
They were:
• Cap sewer rates at no higher than 1.9 percent of median household income.
• End the consent decree on schedule in 2026, then transfer further oversight to the state as Fort Smith continues to work on improvements.
• Delay hydraulic modeling, and capacity assessment and remediation until sewers have been cleaned out. Now, all these steps are to be done concurrently. The city argues the sewers must be cleaned first before they can be accurately modeled, assessed and remediated.
• Assess stipulated penalties only if overflows in the system are because of the city's negligence. Fort Smith was assessed nearly $500,000 in 2015 and 2016 for system overflows. The EPA reversed the assessment last year when Fort Smith argued the overflows were beyond the city's control, eliminating the overflows took time, and assessments took money away from work on complying with the decree.
"The 'better way' sought as consent decree modifications would achieve the local, state and federal goal of bringing Fort Smith into compliance with the Clean Water Act but in a more affordable manner that will avoid unreasonable burden on city ratepayers," Geffken said in the release.
The release said the number of overflows has been decreased by 94 percent since the onset of the consent decree. Once elimination of wet-weather and dry-weather overflows are addressed, Geffken said, the remaining work of the consent decree is ongoing maintenance and upkeep that is part of the Capacity, Management, Operations, Maintenance Program required in the decree, which can be monitored by the state.
Geffken said federal officials could respond to Fort Smith's proposal in four to six weeks.
State Desk on 08/21/2018