Kalispell council leery of Evergreen's sewer request

The Kalispell City Council informally said "no thanks" Monday to an Evergreen Water and Sewer District request to buy or lease an extra 100,000 gallons of daily capacity at Kalispell's sewage-treatment plant.

Evergreen also offered to pay for part of the expansion of Kalispell's treatment plant in return for access to some of the plant's future capacity.

The sewer district's offer came with no figures, plus the caveat that it still is studying whether it should build its own plant southeast of Kalispell.

On Tuesday, Roberta Struck, the Evergreen district manager, said the sewer-plant feasibility study is still in the preliminary planning stage and likely will crank up later this year.

Although they were not legally allowed to vote at Monday's workshop session, most council members said they could see no reason to grant Evergreen's request. They plan to send a letter to Evergreen to state that position.

Council member Tim Kluesner first said the council should wait for an actual proposal with figures and details to emerge from Evergreen, but then agreed with other council members that the request had no upside for the city.

Several council members fretted that if Evergreen helped pay for the city's sewage plant expansion, the city might have to buy out the sewer district's share later if Evergreen builds its own plant.

Right now, the city sewage-treatment plant can handle up to 3.1 million gallons a day and is operating at nearly full capacity.

Several proposed subdivisions near Kalispell have been seeking annexation into the city to hook up to that plant - the only one of its kind in this area of Flathead County. Evergreen has talked about building its own plant during the past few years.

Kalispell has begun a $20.5 million project to expand its plant's daily capacity to 5.5 million gallons by late 2008 or early 2009, and eventually to 7.5 million gallons when needed in a few years.

Since 1990, Evergreen and Kalispell have had an agreement in which the city plant sets aside a capacity of 682,000 gallons daily to treat Evergreen sewage. Evergreen has traditionally used from 450,000 to 500,000 gallons a day.

That agreement limits that 682,000-gallons-a-day capacity to serving only Evergreen.

Evergreen asked to pay for an extra 100,000 gallons a day with permission to provide that capacity to The Trumbull Creek Crossing Phase I, Cottonwood Estates and Bernard Park projects just north of the Evergreen district.

Those subdivisions want service from Kalispell's plant, and they are in various stages of agreeing that they won't oppose annexation when Kalispell borders extend to them.

If Evergreen gets Kalispell's permission to expand its sewer services north of the district, much of that expansion would be blocked by those subdivisions if they become legally tied to Kalispell as future city lands.

In approaching Kalispell, Struck said, Evergreen wants to keeps options open for it to serve more customers - possibly expanding its service area beyond current legal boundaries - or to choose not to build its own plant if the study's figures crunch that way.

She also said Evergreen's request - if granted - would have given developers more options for sewer services.

The Kalispell council's rejection should not affect Evergreen's current plans, Struck said.

"It won't throw a monkey wrench at us. It might throw a monkey wrench to some developers," she said.

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