MONROE COUNTY SEWERS

If you’ve attended Monroe political forums or read Monroe papers in the last week or so, you’ve heard the incumbent county commissioners tell how they’ve solved the Monroe County sewer problems by acquisition of $300 or $310 or $330 million dollars.

The incumbent state representative, their ally, brags about helping to solve the problem by bringing “home” $10 million of state money for 2004-05.

Talk about “smoke and mirrors” and “fuzzy math”, these assertions lead the way. First of all, the $300-330 million dollars is money, at best, that’s going to come out of the pockets of Monroe County taxpayers for the next 20 years.

Second, the state rep’s $10 million is only half of what the Governor promised this past January.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, all of it is only a drop in the bucket and not going to solve Monroe County $1 billion+ sewer problem by the state mandated deadline of 2010, less than 6 years from now.

Monroe’s present action and plans call for a series of sewer plants and mains, none of which will meet state mandated advanced wastewater treatment (AWT) standards, because none of them will have $5 million + dollar deep injection wells. All of them will have shallow 90 foot injection wells. All of them will rely upon sewer sludge being shipped, by truck, up north in Florida (where it can there damage the aquifer and the Everglades).

We know that in densely populated Key West, it cost upwards of $200 million (inclusive of laterals) to sewer this 2 x 4 island, to AWT, to AWT standards.

Costs of sewering the far less densely populated 102 miles of the rest of the Keys have been variously estimated at between $500 million and $1 billion+, exclusive of new laterals and removal of septic tanks.

On December 12, 2000, Congress authorized $100 million of federal monies to help address the Keys’ sewage problems. In April, 2001, there was even a meeting in Marathon to decide how to divvy up the pot. Key Largo, Marathon and Islamorada were to get $29.5 million each, and Key West would get $10.3 million (that it would apply to stormwaters). Well, now, nearly 4 years later, Ros-Lehtinen and her allies have not produced one cent of the $100 million.

On 1/10/04, Alyson Matley of The Keynoter reported that Colleen Castille of the state Department of Community Affairs had promised, via the Governor’s December cabinet meeting, $18-21 million state money for 2004-05 Monroe County “wastewater” projects. Our incumbent state rep somehow managed to get that reduced to $10 million, which we’re now fighting to see how to distribute. As I’ve recently said, why the fight? The $10 million is a drop in a $1 billion+ bucket.

Now let’s turn to the county’s $300-330 million. As best I understand it, virtually all of that sum is supposed to come from bonds supported mostly by “bonded connection fees”. A bonded connection fee is a fancy name for a 20-year indebted loan, repayment of which is added to the annual tax bill of each Monroe County owner “equivalent dwelling unit”.

If the initial debt is $2,700, the taxpayer would pay an additional annual tax of $100 or so, once a year for 20 years; if $4,700, as in Marathon’s Little Venice, it’d be $300 or so per year. If $13,000, as some reasonably estimate, it’d be $1,000 per year, all paid by the Monroe County taxpayer. Will this be the total expense? No, not hardly! There’ll be additional monthly user fees of an estimated $47 ($564 per year) per equivalent dwelling unit. There’ll also be one-shot expenses to remove septic tanks and install new lateral piping. The latter, in densely populated Key West with only 10-20-30 feet to make a connection to a sewer main, there cost upwards of $7,000 apiece. Think of what’ll it cost where the lateral may be hundreds of feet.

Let’s get back, however, only to initial plant and main construction at $500 million to $1 billion+, which is supposed to be covered by Murray Nelson’s and Dixie Spehar’s $300-330 million. As I understand it, their $300-330 million supposedly consists, somehow, of a $100-111 million amount in Marathon that will arise from debt bonds paid off by Marathon folks in 20 years, by annual tax payments or bonded connection fees. It also supposedly consists of a similar $60 million in the City of Islamorada.

In addition to that $160-170 million, there’d be a $40 billion bond issued by the County this fall, to be repaid out of the capital improvement infrastructure sales tax, and all of that $40 million would be split $20 million to Big Coppit and $20 million to Key Largo. (How $20 million will solve Key Largo’s problems where sewer plant and main costs are going to be upwards of $200 million, is slightly beyond me.)

In addition to this now $200-210 million, there’d be another $80 million County bond issue at some unknown future date, repaid from some unknown bonded connection fees. Assuming that we now have a fuzzy total of $280-290 million in County taxpayer monies, I suppose the other $40-50 million will theoretically come from the state. Note again, however, that this theoretical $300-330 million will only cover 2/3s or 1/3d of $500 million or $1 billion+ in sewer plant and sewer main construction costs, and won’t cover any costs of septic tank removal and/or installation of new lateral connections and/or monthly user fees.

All of this in an effort to only have the County partially cover the Keys with sewer plants with shallow, 90 feet injection wells, that don’t meet state mandated year 2010 requirements.

May one politely ask if we have any elected officials with common sense? Any elected officials who aren’t trying to give us a snow job, and to lull us into complacency?

All concede that the Florida Keys must improve our wastewater situation. To do that, we need real help from federal and state officials. We don’t need a bunch of baloney from local officials.