Another year gone: still no sewer funds

By Steve Estes

“Pencils are down,” on any forward movement on the Cudjoe Regional centralized wastewater system, says County Administrator Roman Gastesi.

But that doesn’t mean all the work on providing advanced wastewater systems to users in that area has ground to a halt.

The county last year agreed to halt all further design and engineering work on the 10,000-plus EDU (equivalent dwelling unit) system that will bring central sewage systems to properties from Lower Sugarloaf to Big Pine Key so it could get the Duck Key expansion completed.

And thus far, no money has popped out of the ground to allow county officials to change their minds on that decision.

The state legislature did approve a five-year extension for getting county-wide systems in the ground which “Gives us a little breathing room,” says Gastesi.

But it doesn’t answer any questions about where the money comes from to build the $195 million system, the last one in unincorporated Monroe County to start.

County officials had hoped that along with the five-year extension the state Legislature would allow it to go to the voters for approval of an additional one-cent sales tax through referendum. The state must authorize the referendum, and the voters would have to approve levying the tax on themselves and the tourists who visit here.

That proposal was pulled from the extension legislation late in the last Legislative session through political maneuvering.

“We’re still looking at the possibility of resurrecting the one cent sales tax option down the road,” said Gastesi. “If we can’t get that, then we have to push hard for the state to allocate the $200 million it promised in bonds to help us out.”

Three years ago, the Legislature authorized the issuance of $200 million in bonds for the Keys wastewater systems, but has yet to allocate any of that money.

“With the fiscal restraints the state is facing right now, I’m not optimistic that we’ll get $50 million of that money even next year,” said County Commissioner George Neugent.

Even if the state dumped all the money in the county’s lap in one shot, however, it still wouldn’t be enough for the county to pay the full freight on the Cudjoe Regional system. The money would be divided amongst all the wastewater entities in the county, with the county getting the larger portion, but nowhere near all.

“We need to regroup at this point and see where we can go,” said Gastesi.

He said the county is in “all kinds of hoppers for all kinds of money,” but there is nothing solid on the horizon.

“Everything is pure speculation on the money front right now,” said Neugent.

The county must pay for the construction of the systems while they are built and operated by the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority.

“I still believe the penny sales tax is the best option for us,” said Neugent. “We have a choice of asking our tourists to pay for about half of the remaining costs through a sales tax levy, or asking our residents to pay the entire cost by special assessment.”

And that is a route Neugent and other commissioners have said they will not travel.

“Until there are identifiable dollars to do Cudjoe Regional in an equitable manner to the resident costs associated with Key Largo and Big Coppitt, I won’t support moving forward with the Cudjoe Regional system,” said Neugent.

“If the state won’t allow us to at least make the decision whether to tax ourselves to provide a revenue stream to bond the remaining projects, we have to take the stance that we won’t assess our residents $25,000 each to pay for the development of the Cudjoe Regional system,” he said.

When the five year extension rolls around, Neugent said he’s not sure the state wants to be in the business of enforcing a mandate on residents for which they haven’t contributed fairly.

With the central system still out there on a very hazy horizon, county officials at least have some hope of getting some residents in the Cudjoe Regional service area up to AWT standards by the new 2015 deadline.

The county recently received a $3.2 million grant for a demonstration project for on-site system replacements.

“We need to scrounge up about $1 million from county coffers,” said Neugent. “With that, the grant money and system development fees, we can do all of the cold spot areas identified in Cudjoe Regional.”

Cold spots are those areas where central systems will be run because they are too remote from other planned transmission and collection lines to make them economically viable. Those areas will be served with AWT on-site systems.

Cold spots right now include all of Big Torch Key and Middle Torch Key, remote areas of Sugarloaf and Summerland Keys, interior sections of Big Pine Key and No Name Key, as well as other scattered pockets of individual unit or sparse density.

Right now the county still has a $4,500 per EDU system development fee that the property owner would pay. The remainder of the expenses would be covered by the grant and county sources. The development fee can be amortized over 20 years and added to the property tax bill.

It is still proposed, however, that on-site users will pay the same monthly operations and maintenance costs as those on central systems, with maintenance costs to be borne by FKAA.

None of those costs include the construction of lateral lines from the home primary drain to the street. That cost can be from $3,000 to $6,000 for a normal installation, more if the run is longer than average or involves other issues.

“Our goal over the next year is to push the state hard for the sales tax referendum authorization, the release of the $200 million and any federal money we can get our hands on,” said Neugent. “Without one of those, the system development will remain dormant.”