Compromise sought in subdivision sewer issue

A proposed solution to a long-running sewage treatment impasse on a chunk of rural land will go to Kalispell's City Council on Monday.

On the surface, the proposal merely links a proposed subdivision northeast of Kalispell with the city's sewage treatment plant.

But it also marks a potential evolution in the sometimes-tense relationship between the city and the Evergreen sewer district.

The piece of land is the Kelsey Subdivision northeast of the intersection of U.S. 2 and East Reserve Drive. The subdivision involves 54 lots on 18 acres of land.

For years, this undeveloped site has been trapped in limbo because it does not fall neatly into a 1990 legal agreement between Kalispell and Evergreen. That's because a small part of the Kelsey Subdivision is within the Evergreen district while most is adjacent to it.

A 1990 agreement says that Evergreen won't extend sewer service beyond its current borders, which means it cannot directly absorb most of Kelsey into its jurisdiction.

However, the subdivision is also roughly two miles from the city's borders. That means the only way that Kelsey can ship its sewage to the city's sewage treatment plant is to hitch a ride through Evergreen's sewer lines.

Over the years, strict interpretations of the 1990 legal agreement meant that neither the city nor Evergreen would take care of the sewage treatment needs of future houses to be built at Kelsey.

Recently, Evergreen's board sent a proposed compromise through the Flathead City-County Health Department to the Kalispell City Council. Council members discussed the proposal last Monday at a workshop and plan to discuss it more this Monday.

The health department is involved because it is concerned that the impasse will lead to a small, onsite treatment system being built in the Kelsey Subdivision. The department believes that municipal sewage treatment would be better for public health.

Evergreen's recent proposal would allow Kelsey to install sewer lines and hook them to the district's sewer lines, which will transfer the waste to Kalispell's treatment plant. Evergreen would own the sewer lines within Kelsey until some possible future date when Kalispell might annex Kelsey, at which time the city would assume ownership of Kelsey's sewer lines.

Observers said consequences of such a compromise would be:

-Evergreen would extend its sewer lines slightly beyond its currently mandated area.

-If the city ever extends its borders northeast enough to realistically consider annexing Kelsey, Evergreen won't stand in its way, as well as turn over Kelsey's sewer system.

However, city officials see a couple of wrinkles that they want to ponder.

Right now, the 1990 agreement says that Evergreen has a legal claim to an average of 682,000 gallons a day of Kalispell's sewage treatment plant's 3.1 million-gallon-a-day capacity. Through the years, Evergreen's use has remained steady at roughly 450,000 gallons a day, city and Evergreen officials said.

Meanwhile, the city's plant is processing sewage at a rate of 2.7 million gallons to 2.8 million gallons a day, expecting that figure to increase significantly because of rapid growth in the greater Kalispell area. Consequently, the city is expanding its sewage treatment plant so it should be able to handle roughly 5 million gallons a day by 2007.

City Public Works Director Jim Hansz questions one aspect of the proposed compromise. The still-undetermined number of daily gallons of future Kelsey sewage won't be counted as part of Evergreen's 682,000-gallon-a-day allocation. "They want to extend their service area, using Kalispell's capacity," Hansz said.

However, Roberta Struck, Evergreen district director, said her board views the 682,000-gallons-a-day allocation as strictly for Evergreen residents, who have paid for that capacity for years with their sewer bills.

Meanwhile, Kalispell council members wondered last Monday whether the proposed compromise would set up the city as a sewage treatment utility for hire for other development projects outside of Kalispell.

"I have a problem with setting a precedent of giving away the capacity of the wastewater treatment plant. . … With this decision, we really are opening up a can of worms. You can decide whether to be a city or whether to be a utility," Council Member Jim Atkinson said last Monday.

Also surfacing last Monday was the specter of annexation: Extending sewage services is routinely linked to annexation.

And an underlying tension exists between Evergreen and Kalispell over the sewer district's suspicions of the city moving its borders east and northeast into the district, and the city being skittish about triggering those suspicions.

"This is a case of annexation. This is not a case of protecting the aquifer [from septic systems], it's annexation," council member Bob Hafferman said last Monday.

Mayor Pam Kennedy replied that the city has no plans for annexation in or around Evergreen, but added that the compromise would give the city options in the future if needed.

Reporter John Stang may be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at jstang@dailyinterlake.com