Authority Board Accepts Fee Analysis

— Determining the cost for a city to connect to the Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority wastewater facility involves many factors, board members discovered Tuesday.

Representatives from HDR Engineering of Seattle gave an hourlong presentation to explain the methodology to determine costs.

Board members accepted the connection fee analysis as the basis for expansion.

“We tried to figure (a fee methodology) out ourselves, but gave up. It had too many moving pieces.”

Bob McCaslin

Bentonville mayor

Bentonville and Tontitown are the only two cities using the wastewater facility. None of the other eight member cities has expressed an urgent need to connect to the facility.

“We tried to figure (a fee methodology) out ourselves, but gave up,” said Bob McCaslin, Bentonville mayor. “It had too many moving pieces.”

Tom Gould, HDR vice president and national director of utility rates and finance, said the project also stretched the minds in his organization.

“There are different ways to arrive at a fair and equitable cost to become part of the authority,” Gould said.

Fees will be based on the capacity of the plant; how much capacity the joining city wants to buy; the cost of hooking on to a sewer line; and what part of the debt will be transferred to the new member.

The fee calculation is based on phases 1 and 2 of the wastewater plant.

Phase 1 is the existing plant which can process 3.6 million gallons per day. Between Bentonville and Tontitown, the authority treats about 1.6 million gallons each day, which means there is still capacity left for another city to purchase, Gould said.

“If for instance a city wanted to buy 1 million gallons of the existing plant capacity, it would cost $10,722,064 to connect to the plant,” Gould said.

The additional city would also have to pay a conveyance fee to connect to one of the pipelines running to the plant. The conveyance fee would be $1,031,210, based on the calculation formula.

The city would still be charged a fee based on the amount of wastewater treated, according to HDR officials.

The cost to a city would increase under phase 2, which is based on a 1.8 million gallon expansion to bring the capacity of the plant to 5.4 million gallons per day.

“The cost for 1 million gallons would be $11,607,752 under phase 2. The conveyance fee would increase as well, to $13.1 million,” Gould said.

George Spence, chairman of the board, said the study was necessary.

“Now we have a way of determining cost if someone is interested in connecting to the authority plant,” he said. “They will have a figure to contrast with the cost of building a plant or expanding their existing plant. It all comes down to cost.”

Board members agreed the methodology is useful.

“It’s complicated,” said Jerre Van Hoose, one of the Springdale representatives on the board. “That’s why we hired HDR to figure it out. I think we got our money’s worth.”

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