Waldron to vote on tax to fix water, sewer leaks

0.5% tax sought for water, sewer

Waldron voters will decide Nov. 4 whether to enact a 0.5 percent sales tax to pay for water and sewer improvements in an attempt to eliminate sanitary sewer overflows and replace old, leaking water pipes.

If passed, the tax would remain in place for five years, during which time it would generate nearly $1.4 million, according to information released by the city.

According to the ballot title, net proceeds from the tax would be used to replace and extend water and sewer lines and to pay for street repairs and overlays. Mayor Don Owens said the street repairs would be associated with the utility work.

Owens said the repairs are needed because gaps and breaks in the sewer lines allow stormwater to penetrate the pipes, which leads to overflows at the wastewater treatment plant. The city is in violation of its wastewater treatment permit because of the overflows.

And the city is experiencing waterline breaks because many of the cast-iron waterlines were laid in the 1940s and are deteriorating, Owens said.

He said the sewer and water pipes will be repaired where needed, and he doesn't expect that large stretches of new lines will need to be installed.

However, he said a sewer line about a quarter-mile long would be laid along U.S. 71 to connect businesses, now using septic tanks, to the city's sewer system. The new line also would encourage new development, he said.

Passage of the tax would increase the sales tax rate in Waldron to 10.625 percent. The rate now stands at 10.125 percent: 6.5 percent state tax, 2.625 Scott County tax and 1 percent Waldron tax.

The city is under an Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality consent order issued last month that will levy daily fines against Waldron if the city doesn't make improvements to its wastewater system, Owens said.

The department has found Waldron in violation of its wastewater permit not only for sanitary sewer overflows but for violations of phosphorus discharges from its treatment plant.

Owens said the discharge improvements to the plant could cost $2.5 million. Money for those improvements would not come from the 0.5 percent sales tax, he said, but from extending existing sewer improvement bonds and paying them off with sewer rate income.

He said that depending on how the tax election turns out in November, the City Council could consider the bond extension in December.

NW News on 09/28/2014

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