[Vision2020] sewage treatment cost

[Bruce and Jean Livingston]

Others who are more closely connected to this issue can probably offer more precise comment to allay your cynicism, James, but my sense is that your fears are mostly misplaced.  My understanding of the sewer bill "problem" is that there has been almost no development of long term planning and capital fund building for sewer "issues' and that the sewer system is approaching 100 years of age and is in dire need of significant and expensive repairs.  I think we are looking at a massive capital expenditure and that the increases in sewer bills relate to that in some fashion.  Could someone who is not speculating based on a vague recollection, (as I am, admittedly), please fill us in?

Bruce Livingston
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Reynolds, James 
  To: vision2020 at moscow.com 
  Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2006 11:19 AM
  Subject: [Vision2020] sewage treatment cost


  Beth and I were looking at our city utility bill and noted once again that our sewage treatment bill is significantly larger than the water bill. I guess we must be paying off the cost of the last upgrades still?

  When the upgrades were nearing completion we had a conversation with an engineer from the treatment plant that, at the time, made me proud of what our city facility managers were doing with the upgrades and all. It was this engineers thought, as he learned the ropes of the new system, that there would be less need of man-power at the new station because it was mostly automated and only required a minimal amount of physical labor for operation.

  My thoughts now have hardened. I expect that the potential savings from the more efficient plant will be eaten up by empire building administrators who will not only have more people hired for the operation of the plant but will also have a much thicker coating of administrator payroll to tap off the excess monies that will tragically happen when the bond expires.

  Administrators do need bigger boats and their relatives do need income.

  Just a little synical, paranoid thought based on nothing more than the observation that almost all administrators are at least somewhat of the self-serving empire building cloth so I might as well get a head start on this issue.

  James Reynolds
  Moscow


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