By Nicholas Brown
Staff Writer

State environmental officials have thrown a monkey wrench into the sewer department’s multimillion-dollar sewer expansion plan, said Hooksett sewer superintendent Bruce Kudrick. The result is a $1.5 million bond request voters could see on this year’s ballot.

The three-phase plan, started when voters approved a $3.5 million bond in 2002, would double the capacity of Hooksett’s wastewater treatment plant from 1.1 million gallons per day to 2.2 million gallons.

Kudrick said the plant has been regularly nearing capacity, averaging about 800,000 gallons per day last year.

The town council has voted 5-3 in support of the new $1.5 million request, with some councilors suggesting that the unexpected costs should be paid for solely by ratepayers. Kudrick estimated that about one-half to three-quarters of the town is currently hooked up to the sewer system.

Kudrick said the multi-year project’s $800,000 Phase I is already underway.

But state environmental officials have introduced a snag to Phase II, by now requiring a new $1 million clarifier, which local sewer officials hadn’t anticipated buying until phase III, tentatively scheduled for 2009-10.

“We only have one clarifier, and the state and the DES are very big on duplication,” said Kudrick, explaining the need. “If our clarifier broke, we would would have no backup. We’d be in there polluting the river.”

A clarifier is a large tank where solids are separated from water that’s then treated with chlorine and returned to the river. Kudrick estimated the revised cost of phase II at about $5.5 million. This would include a composting operation, new piping, new aeration tanks and multiple new structures to house new equipment.

The department currently has access to most of the $3.5 million – currently being paid off exclusively by rate payers – in state revolving loan funds, and $1.5 million in the town’s sewer system development fund.

Thus, said Kudrick, the $1.5 million would likely cover the first two phases of the project.

At a recent public hearing on the bond proposal, town councilor Doug St. Pierre said he fully supports the improvements to the water treatment facility, especially as increased sewer capacity could bring positive commercial growth, but said his “fundamental belief” is that the $1.5 million cost should be handled by current rate payers.

Kudrick, however, noted that ratepayers are already carrying the majority of the project’s costs.

“The ratepayers are being hit with a $3.5 million bond already,” he said.

But other councilors brought up the point that the sewer plant was originally funded, in 1970, by taxpayers throughout town through a general issue bond.

“There has been some history of recognizing that this is a town-wide obligation,” town council chairman Michael DiBitetto said, after the hearing.

Some of the conversation at the public hearing concerned the potential development of the tax incremental financing – or TIF – district, recently formed by the council.

If large retailers were to move into the district, off I-93’s exit 11, a TIF bond could potentially cover upgrades to infrastructure including the town’s sewer system.

Yet town officials have declined to speculate on if and when TIF district funding may be proposed to voters.

“We have to expand the treatment plant no matter what happens with the TIF district,” said Kudrick.