Hymes

ELKINS — Elkins City Council approved the first reading of an ordinance that will raise the sewer rate by 42% for customers over the next three years .

During council’s Feb. 20 meeting, the nine present council members voted in favor of Ordinance 350, which would increase customer sewer rates three times over the next three years, totaling a 42% rate hike by 2028. Third Ward representative Erika Plishka was not in attendance.

The three increases include a 15% increase effective May 15, a 12% increase effective May 15, 2027, and a 15% increase effective May 15, 2028.

The proposed increase comes following a recommendation from the Elkins Sanitary Board, which manages the city’s sewer system. Elkins City Council previously approved a 32.5% sewage rate increase in April 2023. Before that, a 21.5% increase in the sewage rate was approved by council in November 2019.

A final decision will be made with a vote on the second and last reading of the proposed ordinance during the March 5 meeting. If City Council approves Ordinance 350, customers will see the new rate on their utility bills beginning on June 30.

A public hearing concerning the proposed rate increase will take place just before the March 5 council meeting at 7 p.m. at the Phil Gainer Community Center.

Before the council voted on Ordinance 350, Elkins Wastewater System Chief Operator Whitney Hymes gave the council more information on what is influencing the Elkins Sanitary Board’s recommendation to increase the sewer rate.

Hymes explained that the Wastewater Department began looking at the city’s sewer rates and revenues in August of last year and there were concerns regarding “pretty substantial projects” that the department might be implementing in the next five years.

“This is not an uncommon thing for municipalities to be seeing at this time… It’s something that’s being seen statewide,” Hymes said.

She noted that, currently, the finances for the sewer system are stable, but would not be so in the next few years. As Hymes explained, one of the issues the department is facing is that the city’s collection system for sewer waste is “antiquated” as it is more than 100 years old, meaning upgrades are necessary.

Another issue is that each of the city’s 11 pumping stations has two different horsepower pumps per station. Hymes said one of the pumps cost $60,000 and the other cost $120,000, meaning it costs $180,000 for just one station to replace its pumps if something goes wrong. In the new fiscal year, nine pumps will be sent out for rebuild, totaling a cost of $80,000.

Hymes continued to lay out even more hefty expenses that the Wastewater System is facing, including state and federally required upgrades.

“We’re starting to find out too that a lot of these lift stations are 40 years old,” Hymes said. “The pumps are starting to become obsolete. So, all the piping changes… and that is a projective project that we’re going to have to see in the next five years is to renovate all these lift stations or we’re not going to get pumps to fit into them.”

Hymes, alongside Mayor Jerry Marco, emphasized that these pricey changes and upgrades are not being made simply by choice, but because they are required by state and federal regulations and guidelines.

It was also pointed out that the fund for Elkins sewer system is self-sustaining and, by law, can only be funded entirely by the customers who use the service.

“I can’t go to Mike (Elkins Operation Manager Michael Kesecker) over here and say, ‘Hey, can you loan me twenty thousand?'” Hymes said. “I can’t go to Steve (Elkins Fire Department Chief Steve Hymes) and say, ‘Hey, give me $15,000.’ I can’t do that. So we have to be able to self-sustain our department.”

Hymes also informed council that the city’s Long-Term Control Plan is currently being revised to include these new and required projects and, once implemented, will be a 10-year plan that the City of Elkins “is mandated to do.” As Hymes explained, the federal government requires the City of Elkins to follow this plan.

“So mid-summer that is going to be reissued, so we’re going to have a whole new set of stipulations that we’re going to have to follow,” Hymes said. “So, that back truck you see driving around? $450,000, was not a City choice. It was federally mandated that we had to do that… It was before my time, but there was an issue that happened that the federal government came in and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to watch this. So we’re going to continue to be watched and we have to follow these rules… My hands are tied.”

At the end of her explanation, Hymes offered an open invitation to Elkins residents to come and take a tour of the facilities to see and better understand what the city is experiencing when it comes to wastewater.

Elkins City Council will meet next on March 5 at 7 p.m. at the Phil Gainer Community Center.