Board inches closer to holding bond election

SEELEY LAKE – At the Oct. 22 meeting, the Seeley Lake Sewer District Board continued on its path toward holding a bond election.

The Board was presented with a draft resolution to hold a bond election. The District’s Bond Council Dan Semmens said that if the Board wants to move forward with an election date in February of 2021, it should adopt the resolution at its November meeting.

There would be two types of bonds. A general obligation bond would pay for the treatment plant, force main and lift stations and a revenue bond would pay for Phase 1’s collection system. The general obligation bond would be paid for based on a property’s taxable values while the revenue bond would be paid for by an equal assessment for all properties in Phase 1.

Registered voters in the entire District would receive a ballot for the general obligation bonds while registered voters in Phase 1 would also receive a ballot for the revenue bonds. Semmens said that if one bond failed and the other passed, he felt that the funding agencies would not allow the project whose bonds passed to continue since the two projects are both needed together.

Semmens said that after discussions with the funding agencies and engineers the current estimates for the project is nearly $12 million for the treatment plant, the force main and lift stations and $5 million for Phase 1’s collection system. The District currently has about $10 million in grants.

Under the current approved funding scenario there is a shortfall of a little more than $1 million. Semmens said they estimated an additional $640,000 would be needed on the bond based on the current grant loan ratio. This higher amount is reflected in the bond election resolution.

Semmens said they assigned this extra bond amount to the general obligation bonds because the budget shortfall was mostly due to realigning the force main and adding a second lift station.

Because the general obligation bond is based on a property’s market value and subsequent taxable value, Semmens included two estimated costs in the bond resolution. To pay for the treatment plant and force main, a home with a market value of $100,000 would have monthly payments of $11.59 and a $200,000 home would pay $23.18 per month.

In Phase One an additional $25 per month would pay for the collection system. Future phases would pay for their collection systems as they are funded and constructed. These cost estimates are for the construction of the system only and do not include the cost of operations and maintenance.

Director Beth Hutchinson suggested that they present the tax scenarios for commercial property as well as the residential estimates. Semmens cautioned against that as it gets very confusing. He said there are 15 tax classifications of property and some businesses like Pyramid Mountain Lumber, Inc. will have several classifications at one location.

The Board voted unanimously to put the bond election resolution on the November meeting. The election resolution can be found in the October meeting packet on the District’s website at https://www.seeleysewer.org/documents/1151/10_22_20_Board_Papers.pdf

In other business, President Tom Morris sought to correct some information that was in a recent TV news story done by NBC Montana. The story was aired on Oct. 7 about Seeley’s water quality issues and proposed sewer system.

In the broadcast, Morris said there was a section listing the bad effects on the human body resulting from drinking nitrogen contaminated water that was immediately followed by a video clip of Missoula City-County Health Department Sanitarian Jim Erven. In the clip Erven says, “In the case of Seeley, we have that happening. We actually have monitoring wells that show contamination above the allowable standards under state law.”

Morris said he didn’t think that Erven meant to say that people were getting sick drinking contaminated water in Seeley Lake but the way the clips were arranged it made it look that way.

“That is absolutely not the case. We have no recorded cases of people suffering from cancer, or headaches, or anything else from consumption of nitrates because of Seeley Lake’s groundwater contamination,” said Morris.

Erven, who was in attendance at the meeting, agreed that the way the clips were arranged took it out of context because most of the residents of Seeley Lake are not drinking the groundwater. Most residents get their water from Seeley’s public water system.

In an email exchange with the Pathfinder after the meeting, Erven also clarified that while he was quoted by NBC that there are wells exceeding state groundwater standards of 10 mg/L, there is only one test well that has exceeded the standard. The two other test wells show contamination but not exceeding the state standard.

The next regular meeting is scheduled for Nov. 19 at 6 p.m. Check the District’s website for information on how to participate.