A Letter in Support of Treatment Plant Referendum

By Town Council member David Schrumm:

The $30 million upgrade to our waste water system has been in the planning stages for over three years. Some of the recent campaign rhetoric about “rushing the project to referendum” is false. Here are the reasons to support the project:

a.     It simply must be done. This is not a discretionary expenditure. The plant must run 24/7 365 days a year and some of the parts in the plant have been doing that since it was built in the late 1960’s!  It needs to be repaired.

b.     Due to the sluggish economy, contractors are being very aggressive in their bids to get work. If we delay this project for a few years it may very well cost us a lot more. I am quite certain that in this climate the final price for this upgrade will be well below  the estimate of $30 million. (We cannot go out to bid until the referendum passes so getting an exact figure before the referendum is impossible.)

c.      The town’s bond rating is at an all time high while interest rates are at an all time low. We will not borrow the full cost all at once. Borrowing will take place as the three year construction phase plays out. This will level the impact on our debt service and leave plenty of time to secure state aid which I do believe will be forthcoming eventually. One other point: almost two years ago, the town received a windfall of sorts from a CRRA (trash plant) rebate. This Council placed over  $3 million dollars in a debt service reserve fund which will be used to smooth out the water treatment plant bond payments as they come due over the next twenty years.

d.     The WPCA is well along in their design work for the upgrade and the detailed drawings have undergone a “value engineering” process by a third party engineering company to make sure all potential savings have been built into the design.  If the referendum passes, the final touches can be put on the drawings and the project can be bid in the spring of 2012. One other point: if state money is not forthcoming, the WPCA has decided to scale back the phosphorous mitigation part of the project which will reduce the overall cost  by as much as $5 million.

e.     Finally, it is very unfortunate that some Council candidates have turned this essential, well-planned project into a political football. Based on some comments they have made it is quite clear that they have not done their homework. What’s even more disappointing is that they have given no consideration to three years worth of diligent work by the volunteer citizens on WPCA and the strategic budget and funding planning done for this project by the Council. Cheshire residents deserve better than political posturing on this important subject.