Sewer compromise passes narrowly

The Kalispell City Council on Monday narrowly voted to allow an outlying rural subdivision to connect with the city's sewage treatment plant - a decision with potential long-term implications for the area's utilities picture.

The council agreed 5-4 to a proposal for the Kelsey Subdivision to hook up with the Evergreen sewer district, which will transport the sewage to the city's wastewater treatment plant.

The closeness of Monday's vote reflected different opinions on how this will affect the sometimes-tense relationship between Kalispell and Evergreen, the possibility of more rural subdivisions using the city's treatment plant, and whether annexation plans linger beneath the surface.

Mayor Pam Kennedy and council members Tim Kluesner, Duane Larson, Hank Olson and Bob Herron supported a complicated Evergreen proposal on the Kelsey situation.

Jim Atkinson, Kari Gabriel, Bob Hafferman and Randy Kenyon voted against Evergreen's proposal.

Kelsey Subdivision consists of 18 acres of undeveloped land northeast of the intersection of U.S. 2 and East Reserve Drive. It can be divided into at least 54 lots.

The wrinkle is that a small part of the subdivision is inside the Evergreen district while most of it is outside. The site is roughly two miles from the city's borders.

A 1990 legal agreement between Evergreen and Kalispell says that the sewer district cannot extend beyond its current boundaries. That means it cannot directly absorb most of Kelsey into its jurisdiction. Strict interpretations of that 1990 agreement meant that neither Evergreen nor Kalispell would take care of the sewage-treatment needs of future houses to be built at Kelsey - stalling construction there for years.

Recently, Evergreen crafted a compromise.

Kelsey would build a sewer system and hook it up to Evergreen, which would then transfer the wastes through its sewer lines to Kalispell's plant. Evergreen would own the Kelsey system until some possible future date when Kalispell might annex the subdivision. If that happens, the city would assume ownership of Kelsey's sewer lines.

The 1990 agreement gives Evergreen a legal claim to 682,000 gallons a day of the 3.1-million-gallon-a-day capacity of Kalispell's sewage treatment plant. Evergreen's use has remained roughly steady at 450,000 gallons a day since the early 1990s.

Overall, the city's plant treats 2.7 million to 2.8 million gallons a day. The city plans to expand its plant's capacity to 5 million gallons by 2007. No figures have been calculated for how much sewage would come from Kelsey, or how much the subdivision's residents would pay the city to take care of it.

As part of the compromise approved by the council and the Evergreen sewer board, Kelsey's wastes would not count against Evergreen's 682,000-gallon-a-day limit.

Some council members worried that if they allow Kelsey to use part of the city's sewage plant's capacity, that would set a legal precedent requiring the plant to provide treatment for other subdivisions outside city limits.

But since part of Kelsey is within the Evergreen district - a district covered by an existing contract with the city - that provides the city with legal protection against other subdivisions requesting to be served by Kalispell's plant, City Manager Jim Patrick said.

However, Atkinson contended Monday's agreement sets a precedent the city should not face.

"It utilizes Kalispell's capacity to serve someone outside of Kalispell. … I do not feel we

should give away responsibility for the capacity that the citizens of Kalispell are paying for," Atkinson said.

If the city provides sewage treatment to projects outside Kalispell, Atkinson said, that will encourage businesses to locate outside city limits while still being able to use city sewer services.

However, Kluesner sees the compromise as the city selling one service - sewage treatment - to a subdivision while not having to provide other services such as police and fire protection. "We're not giving away capacity. We're selling capacity," he said.

A subtext of Kalispell possibly annexing areas of Evergreen ran through the council's discussion.

Hafferman said extending sewage treatment services is invariably a prelude to messy annexation attempts later.

Other council members said the city does not intend to annex Kelsey unless landowners between the city and the subdivision make enough annexation requests over the next several years to put Kelsey and Kalispell adjacent to each other.

"I don't see anything in here [on Monday's compromise vote] about annexation. … It's not even a plot in anyone's mind," Larson said.

Monday's council decision came a few hours after the Flathead County commissioners tentatively decided to double from 10 to 20 acres the amount of county land to be provided for a proposed sewer plant for Evergreen.

The 1990 Kalispell-Evergreen agreement expires in 2015. However, the agreement includes the options of extending the contract twice - each for 10 years.

Evergreen is pursuing its own sewage treatment plant to give it alternatives in case the sewage district and city don't renew their agreement, Evergreen director Roberta Struck said. If the agreement expires in 2015, that would allow the Evergreen district to expand and pursue new customers, she said.

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