Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

The sewer fund in the spring of 2004 was faced with he following conditions:

1. The existing debt against sewer plant and system was around $9.2 Million.

2. The new debt for the 2003 sewer plant expansion was going to be: $10,770,597.64. The debt service payments for that new debt was going to be $762,682.24 per year.

3. Combining existing debt service payments and operating expenses in 2004 the user fees alone were coming up around $600,000 per year short.

4. The only saving grace was the reserves in the sewer fund was $2,149,261.18.

The plan presented to me and the rest of council to pay for the new sewer plant expansion was to issue at least 200 sewer taps per year. The problem with the plan was that there was not that many sewer taps left for residential lots on the Pickerington Sewer system. The huge reserve the sewer fund had in 2004 was the result of sewer taps being sold in Preston Trails, Windmiller Ponds, and Sheffield/Georges Creek. The growth and sewer service for Fox Glen, Sycamore Creek and Spring Creek were not going to be coming from the Pickerington plant. Since the user fees in 2004 were bringing in around $1,336,108 per year the council would have had to double their rates from $4.50 per 1000 gallons up to $9.00 per thousand. Basically doubling the sewer rates in one year.

What is not in that rate increase above is future capital expenditures required by the EPA and for general maintenance of the sewer plant. So I suspect the council would have had to double the rates and then some. More than likely there would have been enough revenue from tap fees to cover those expenses.

The current plant expansion will cost around $11,275.000. When completed; the total capacity for the city sewer plant will be 3.2 MGD.

Using 2004 dollars the 2003 upgrade would have cost $10,770,597.64. In addition that plant expansion required a lift station and a 30 inch line installed from the east 256 area. The estimates at the time were are around a million dollars.

Clearly the 2003 plant was designed to expand east into the township. We can still do that but at our own pace. The urgency in 2003 with the sewer business and the sewer rights here locally were a free for all. We forged ahead and got a new 208 plan approved by the EPA that establishes the sewer utility provider districts so that we can expand at our own pace to met market demands without worry that the provider next door will raid our areas thus losing our investments into new equipment and plants. We were able to buy that time by working with R.D. Zande to have the sewer plant rated higher from 1.2 MGD to 1.6 MGD.

I am hopeful that in the near future Pickerington can look into some of the new technologies to use the existing plant hardware (aerators, clarifiers, and filters) to get even more capacity out of the plant at much less expense per million gallon capacity.

By Ted Hackworth

Contract process


I think the contract process needs to be looked at. In 2003 the city hired Stilson to manage the construction of that plant expansion. I also think that the vague language used in our contracts tend to make the lawyers happy but those common people that must execute the contracts and those that speak english find them very hard to understand the terms. We have seen that issue repetitively come up with the agreements between the city and the township. Where they sees a clause one way and the city sees it another way.

In all my years, I have always held in my mind that the fewer the number of people you have involved in a project the smoother it will go. The fact is that with the building industry down and the engineering companies looking for work the competition for work and construct projects is intense. I was one of seven or eight people working on a selection process of who to hire to design this plant. It was heavily weighted to the staff perspective and opinion. In some ways that is good because they will be the ones using the equipment and working to keep the plant in good working order. On the other hand the political side of the equation should also be addressed. Clearly a sewer plant holds the future direction of development for the city for years.

The second part of that is when you do hire a firm to design the plant or any large project you should also either hire them to do the construct management or have your city engineer contract to do the construction management. Adding a third or fourth company only compounds any potential problems in design and construction scheduling. I hope the construction of the new plant will go smoothly and prove me wrong in my concerns. However if they do run into problems and with the vague contract language I am afraid the fingers will be out pointing the way to a grid lock.




By Ted Hackworth

Thanks for making my case

Making the comparison of the NEW sewer plant building costs and the PREVIOUS building costs were misleading at best.

You failed to compare apples to apples. The previous design, IN YOUR POSTING, said the numbers included a lift station and 30'' line.

So as the long term result, the NEW sewer plant will cost about the same as the PREVIOUS design. But you now have paid another $800,000.00 in design costs for the NEW plant. Tsk. Tsk.

Also, sewer rates had not been raised in over 15 years. There was, by your own admission nearly a $3,000,000.00 reserve. You say council would have had to double rates to pay for the plant in 2003.

How much will the rates have been raised by 2010 with the increases YOU voted for? 90%? So, let me get this straight, rates have been in going up 15% per year since what 2005, thanks to your increase, and we don't have a new plant yet? Sounds like you've been overcharging us seniors...again.



By Tsk. Tsk.

Buying a new truck ????

Tsk Tsk

Wow!! your logic is beyond me.

First we don?’t have a sewer plant expansion in 2008 because we don?’t need a sewer plant expansion in 2008. We still have a couple of hundred thousand gallons of capacity per day left.

I have an 11 year old pick up truck with 92,000 miles on it. Fred Ricart is selling new pickup trucks for less than what I paid for mine in 1997. Are you saying I should go out and buy a truck from Fred because they are selling cheaper today than they were in 1997? Looking forward as long as my current truck works for me I am keeping it and not parting with my money. Same holds true for the Pickerington sewer plant.

In 2005, if we had agreed to build the 2003 sewer plant design the previous year we would have had to increase the sewer rates by 100% at least. That would have been $1.4 million per year more on the sewer bills. The four year delay has saved the Pickerington sewer users $5.3 Million in user fees and we still have adequate sewer capacity for the city. Clearly we are reaching our sewer limits and once the new plant comes on line we will have around a half million gallon capacity worth of PTIs to serve. More will be saved by the time we reach the same rates needed in 2005 but this plan will reach that rate level at the beginning of 2012 and seven years later. In the mean time we have been paying down the sewer system debt and that lowers the overall costs for the sewer users in 2012 when the new plant debt comes due.

I am a senior living on a fixed income. I know that rate increases will come. I would prefer incremental rate increases rather than 100% rate increases brought on by poor planning. The 2010 plant will serve the needs of Pickerington for the next 20 years. There is less than 300 acres of vacant land within the city borders and maybe another 150 acres in the township that will be served by this new plant. Even if the future holds increased development the new plant will be paid off or down by the tap fees generated by the 400 plus acres of development. I would hope that in the future we pay the debt down by tap fees rather than give new development tap fee breaks in exchange for them to annex.


When we looked at the rates we tried to find ways to give the seniors a break. However with the current computer system used at the sewer department we don?’t have a good way to identify those seniors. I would hope that in the future we can find ways to identify and give some kind of discount to the seniors living on fixed incomes. I think by 2012 the system should be in much better finance shape and that should be looked at.

The question to you is why should we build a 30?” line from out east to connect to the sewer plant when the 8?” line is adequate today and for everything platted out there now? The only reason I can see to build that line is if you plan to build more homes out east. I don?’t think we need more homes now or for the foreseeable future. Even if that need would arrise then those developers woudl be required to build the new plant capacity. At least I would hope the future councils require that.

By Ted Hackworth