ThisWeek CW 10/13/2011
Lithopolis and Canal Winchester mayors are hoping to finalize an extension of their current wastewater agreement before the end of the year.
Both Canal Winchester Mayor Michael Ebert and Lithopolis Mayor Eric Sandine are up for re-election in November. They have said they would like to finalize an agreement to extend the current 10-year contract an additional 10 years prior to potential changes in administrations.
Sadine said that he and Ebert have a good deal of knowledge about the current and potential future contract and would like to see the extension through.
The current wastewater agreement expires in 2012.
“We’ve been working pretty well together,” Ebert said. “It’s very much appreciated that Mayor Sandine is willing to work with us to see this through.”
Sandine agreed.
“We have a very good relationship with Canal Winchester, (due) in no small part to Mayor Ebert’s willingness to talk,” Sandine said.
The current contract extension ordinance has been tabled by Canal Winchester City Council for several months, and Ebert said he hopes to have council take the ordinance off the table in November.
According to Canal Winchester public services director Matt Peoples, this has been the result of a busy summer for public works projects, delaying the finalization of the document text.
“It isn’t a contentious issue,” he said. “Summer is always a busy time of year for us so we wanted to wait to make sure we’ve got all the correct language in there.”
Canal Winchester finance director Nanisa Osborn said the contract extension would include an increase in rates from the current $3.25 up to $3.52 per 1,000 gallons of waste and would be in place for another 10 years.
Sandine said that current usage by Lithopolis is on average 90,000 gallons per day, which is well below the 250,000 gallon per day maximum set by the contract. Lithopolis pays only for actual usage, and, according to Sandine, that equates to about $80,000 so far in 2011.
“We don’t charge them anything except what it costs us to process the sewage,” Osborn said. “They’re responsible for maintaining all the lines and their equipment, so the only thing we have to do is treat it.”
In October 2007, Lithopolis filed a lawsuit against Canal Winchester after a conflict arose when Lithopolis annexed almost 200 acres of land at the corner of Washington Street and state Route 256. At the time, Canal Winchester officials said that Lithopolis couldn’t provide the necessary wastewater services to the annexed site.
Ultimately, after a change in Canal Winchester’s administration from Jeff Miller to Ebert, the lawsuit was settled out of court and the remaining four years of the 10-year wastewater contract have continued without conflict.
According to Peoples, one of the biggest additions to the new proposed agreement is the adoption of Canal Winchester’s recently revised sewer use ordinance, which deals with keeping heavy metals, grease and other contaminants out of the system.
“One of our biggest issues is grease,” Peoples said. “It’s pretty standard language and it keeps our costs down by ensuring we don’t have backups from grease or other things in the lines. The more we keep restaurants from discharging grease, the better off the system is.”
Sandine agreed that the language was appropriate for the contract and to keep local waterways clean.
Besides the agreement with Lithopolis, Canal Winchester also provides wastewater services for parts of Pickerington along Diley Road.