“We would rather come to the commission every year with a smaller increase, ask for more of an inflationary type of increase ...” Bauer said. “That would allow us to manage our costs a little better and align them with what we’re seeing and not wait and have to come back and say all of a sudden we need a big rate increase because we’ve just found that we have up with inflation and our costs are coming along each year.”
Bauer said that septage treatment is the process by which a company pumps out the solid waste kept inside the septic tank of a home treatment system. These are typically pumped about once every five years and the company who does so takes the waste to the county wastewater plant where it is properly treated.
“It is difficult to treat type of waste, just because of the nature of it; it’s very old material and usually hard to handle materials,” Bauer said. “So there’s a lot of wear on our equipment at our wastewater plant, so we want to make sure we charge companies that come in and are handling that material appropriately.”
The septage rate is increasing from $50/1000 gallons treated to $120/1000 gallons. The rate was set previously in 2012.
Bauer said this is in alignment with what the city of Springfield charges, which is about $110/1000 gallon treated.
The only Clark County residents who will not see the 3% utilities increases are those on the Rockway district, because they are connected to Springfield’s utilities. The city’s CEDA Agreement with Springfield Twp. requires the county charge what the city does, so these customers will see a 2% increase.
Bauer referred customers with questions to the county’s utilities website. He said it is important for customers to know that the utilities department receives no tax revenue and relies solely on rate payments for funding.
“We work very hard to try to keep our costs as low as possible but at the same time our objective is to make sure we have safe drinking water,” Bauer said.
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