Efforts to provide sewer to the Bean Blossom area have taken a step forward.
The five-member Brown County Regional Sewer District board voted unanimously Feb. 7 to build a wastewater treatment plant in the Bean Blossom area. It will treat wastewater from areas around Bean Blossom, including Woodland Lake, Little Fox Lake and a northern section of Freeman Ridge Road, according to the most recent engineering report.
It is unknown at this time where the plant would be built.
Evan Werling, the sewer board’s president, told the audience that the alternative option — piping the wastewater to Nashville’s treatment plant on the western edge of town — would cost about $800,000 more than building a stand-alone plant.
Gary Ladd, of Ladd Engineering, said his most recent cost estimates brought the total cost of construction for running wastewater to Nashville to $8,126,000. That includes a fee that would guarantee the sewer district access to a specific portion of the Nashville plant’s capacity, and the cost of running a line to the Nashville plant and connecting into the system.
Ladd has estimated the cost of building a plant in the Bean Blossom area at $7,314,000.
Both plans include the cost of needed infrastructure such as pumps and pipes to serve customers.
In addition, Ladd said his latest estimates show lower annual operating and maintenance costs for the Bean Blossom option, with the Nashville option costing about $45,000 more.
While many costs such as electricity, outside services and annual repairs would be cheaper if the wastewater were run to Nashville, others — such as a full-time employee and insurance — would not, Ladd said.
In the end, the cost benefits of running to Nashville aren’t enough to overcome the annual $70,300 treatment fee Nashville would charge, he said.
In December, the Nashville Town Council passed a possible wastewater treatment agreement to the BCRSD board, calling it a place to start negotiations.
Werling had told the town council Nov. 17, before receiving the treatment proposal, that he wanted to see the sewer district work with the town. County officials had expressed the same desire.
Nashville Town Manager/Economic Director Scott Rudd said last week that the sewer district board did not approach the town to do any negotiating and did not respond to the offer.
At the Feb. 7 meeting, Werling said he did not consider the town’s proposal an attempt to negotiate. Wanda Jones, the lawyer for the sewer board, said she did not consider it in the board’s best interest to sign it.
In January, the Brown County Redevelopment Commission agreed to work more directly in getting the sewer project going after Werling, in a letter to the county health board in December, said it had been on the verge of being canceled.
Redevelopment commission President Dave Redding last week said that the commission will stand by willing to offer support but is not currently taking a direct role in the sewer project.
The sewer board plans to apply for a grant to fund most of the cost of sewer construction.
Vicki Perry, the Indiana state director of the Rural Community Assistance Program, a nonprofit, said the United States Department of Agriculture accepts funding applications on a rolling basis, so the sewer board could apply whenever it has a proposal ready.
This is not the first time the sewer effort has come this far.
Perry said the USDA rejected a prior application for grant money by what was known then as the Bean Blossom Regional Sewer District because the cost per sewer customer would have been too high.
In order to lower the per-user cost, the district needed to either lower overall costs or increase the customer base. Since the engineer saw no way to lower costs, the board at that time began looking for additional customers, which was when they first considered serving Woodland Lake as well, Perry said.
As of last week, the grant application was not at a stage where it could be submitted for funding.
