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Regional Water Community Discussion Raises Many Questions,
Offers Few Answers
By Fletcher Word
Sojourner’s Truth Editor
The second of six
community discussions about a proposed regional water
distribution plan was held on Thursday night, March 15 at
the Sanger Branch Library. The meeting, organized by the
City of Toledo, brought out a standing-room only crowd to
listen to the details of the proposed Toledo Area Water
Authority (TAWA). On hand to explain the proposal was Eric
Rothstein, the self-described independent utility advisor,
hired by the Toledo Area Chamber of Commerce to guide Toledo
and surrounding communities in the discussion about forming
a TAWA. The standing-room only crowd asked a number of
questions about the proposal. They received few concrete
answers and one very big threat.
The Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) regarding the TAWA, which was signed by
Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz and representatives of
Maumee, Sylvania, Perrysburg, Sylvania, Whitehouse, the
Northwestern Water and Sewer District and Monroe, Fulton and
Lucas counties, was completed in January 2018 and is now in
its 13 version after several years of discussion. This
version, said Kapszukiewicz, will be placed on a ballot in
the near future for Toledo voters to approve or reject.
The MUO calls for, among
other items, the TAWA to purchase the Toledo water system
whose replacement value is estimated at $1.3 billion for a
maximum of $360 million at $12 million for year over 30
years at “net present value.” That clause means that the
effective worth of the buyout would be for less than $200
million as estimated by some observers such as Democratic
gubernatorial candidate Dennis Kucinich.
Additionally the MUO calls
for a board of trustees to operate the facility and
determine rates for Toledo and the other participating
communities. The board would have only two designees from
Toledo.
Among the many questions
posed at the community discussion, several were repeated and
garnered special interest on the part of the audience: What
are the compelling business reasons to move towards this
type of regionalism? What will the rates be with and without
this move? Why only two of seven board positions for Toledo?
What is the rush? What happens to the current Public Utility
water treatment employees; will they keep their jobs?
The audience was told by
Rothstein that water rates would be equalized – meaning they
will go up for Toledoans and down for those in the outlying
townships, but the rates would not go up for Toledoans as
much as if they would if the surrounding towns that now buy
their water from Toledo went elsewhere to buy their water.
The debt on the water plant – currently around $300 million,
he said, would be assumed by TAWA. And, of course, suburban
cooperation would be enhanced, he assured the audience.
Toledo would receive only
two seats because of a “desire to break from past practices
to avoid a blocking vote,” he said. Such a structure would
promote regional cooperation.
Ed Moore, director of the
Department of Public Utilities, assured attendees that
employee jobs will be safe.
What’s the rush? The rush
to accept the TAWA and put it for a vote on November’s
ballot is to assure the several communities whose contracts
with Toledo end within six years that they can start to make
plans immediately to either stay with TAWA or go off on
their own. If they do decide to go off on their own and seek
other water supplies, such a process is a lengthy one, said
Rothstein.
With this came the big
threat.
The current MUO is the 13th
one produced in this process and work on version 14, said
Rothstein, begins shortly. Version 14 will be an examination
of a water authority that includes all those in version 13
with the notable exception of the City of Toledo. That
possibility, he noted, could mean that Toledo, operating on
its own without suburban customers, would be forced to
increase its rates for city residents by as much as 300
percent.
Unfortunately such a
statement is only a estimate since an extensive analysis of
rates has not been performed; neither has a thorough
appraisal of the value of the Toledo water system. Both will
presumably be performed after the MOU is accepted by Toledo
through a vote in November. Then, at some point in the
future, Toledoans will have the opportunity to learn what
they voted to approve.
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