Residents sound off to Lowell Town Council over sewer bills
The move to amend the sewer rate and fee schedule ordinance was not the most popular move the Town of Lowell had to make this year. Several residents came to the town council meeting on May 27 to express their frustration with the rate hike, but town councilmen said the rate increase is state mandated.
Valerie White didn’t think it was fair to have her wastewater bill increase from $60 to $90 per month. White expressed her anger with council and asked why the town sold their water system to Indiana-American Water. She indicated a gradual increase may have been able to soften the blow to seniors on fixed incomes.
“I worked 50 years,” White said. “I paid taxes big time. We all understand the whole system. It was so shocking to me.”
Council president Todd Angerman said the town has been preparing for this increase for over a year. Angerman said the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) has mandated all sewage treatment plants to test and treat for total nitrogen. He said the town’s wastewater treatment system doesn’t treat total nitrogen, adding the town uses an older method to test for nitogen.
“This is not something we chose to do,” Angerman said. “It's something that the government is making us do. If we do not fix this problem, then we will start getting fines and it’ll start being very expensive, and we will still need to fix it.”
Tammy Sobczak is another resident on a fixed income. Sobczak said the extra $30 per month spent on the wastewater bill will be substantial to her. She thinks the bill should be more of a usage rate per customer as opposed to a flat increase across the board.
Angerman said they’ve already investigated flat rate vs. usage rate in a public forum. He noted pipes must be maintained regardless of how much they are being used. Councilman John Alessia added the costs to maintain the infrastructure must be taken into consideration.
“Five million dollars is a large reason why your bill went up $30,” Alessia said. “Same with everybody sitting here.”
Councilman John Yelkich said part of the problem for the hefty rate increase is due to previous councils not raising rates for years. Yelkich said the town has gotten to the point they have to address the wastewater infrastructure.
“We aren’t in a spot to kick the can anymore,” Yelkich said. “We have to do this. We’re under an agreed order with the state to fix that basin.”
Yelkich also pointed out there is additional waste to treat as sewage gets sent to the Lowell wastewater facility from Cedar Lake. He said even with Cedar Lake’s customers, the town has to maintain the infrastructure one way or the other.
“It’s the basin, it’s the piping,” Yelkich said. “It’s all of the infrastructure that has not been addressed over the course of how many years. So we got put into the position where we couldn’t kick the can anymore.”
Town manager Craig Hendrix said Cedar Lake accounts for 53% of the flow the Lowell wastewater plant, and thus pay that percentage in operations costs. Yelkich added it doesn’t matter what Cedar Lake charges their residents as long as they are paying the Town of Lowell their share of wastewater treatment costs. He said it’s been that way since 1976.
Hendrix said IDEM is now having the town test for total nitrogen at the wastewater plant. He explained the process currently being used at the facility dates back to the 1970s. Hendrix said while the town’s current permit is valid, any time IDEM wants the town to treat for something new, they to test for it now within the permit cycle.
“It’s not a matter of making something bigger,” Hendrix said. “It’s a matter of different ways of processing the waste.”
The next meeting will be 7 p.m. June 9.