Killing Us Softly With Sewers . . .

Utica OD: Sewer costs overflowing: Projects will be costly to ratepayers

A convergence of several sewer projects is hitting local residents hard in the pocketbook. And it only will get worse as the years go by — you might be paying at least $80 more a year by 2016. . . . Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente said the county doesn’t have a choice but to make the repairs and upgrades.

Pure BS plain and simple. One of the "repairs and upgrades" is:

 . . . construction of an improved pipeline, or interceptor, for the planned nanotechnology sites in Marcy.

The choice here is "don't do it!" Simple enough. 

1. No one is holding a gun to Mr. Picente's head to extend sewers to the NanoCenter site, it's an option.
2. When a new development is proposed -- any development -- the county has an OBLIGATION TO REFUSE tie-ins to its system that the system is incapable of handling. (That, BTW, is how the County got into its Consent Order mess to begin with. It was too easy with developers and did not know how to say "no" to new connections that caused increased pollution to spill into the River.) Upon refusal, developers, then, have to implement alternative means of waste disposal as part of their obligation to reduce the environmental impacts of their projects under the State Environmental Quality Review Act.
3. Going into hock for a big industrial user leaves Sewer District Rate-Payers vulnerable to rate-shocks should the industrial user pack up and leave -- which is exactly what happened when Beech Nut left Canajoharie, forcing rates there to skyrocket.
4. It is gambling with Rate-Payers money to build an expansion that might not be used because  (a) a chip fab does not come or (b) the chip fab that comes decides that it makes more sense to treat its industrial waste water itself and discharge same directly rather than use the county facilities.

Why would anyone want to come into a community where sewer rates are unnecessarily high?  

The immediate question now is, why would the County Legislature approve of such nonsense?  

• Perhaps it is because most have no "skin in the game"  since it is the Rate-Payers who are confined to the Greater Utica area that are being placed on the hook to pay for this.
  
• Perhaps it is because they are desperate to hold on to their pay and benefits as legislators that they will do what ever the political elite tell them to. . . or
  
• Perhaps it is because they simply have no clue what they are doing.

What ever the reason, they are drowning us in infrastructure and killing us with astronomical costs.  It needs to stop if this region ever hopes to make a come back.

An in-depth discussion of this issue can be found on the New Hartford Online posting Who is representing the sewer ratepayers??? It is worth reading and and watching the video.