Item A: City of Coburg Request for Connection to Regional Wastewater Facilities

Metadata

Thumbnails

Annotations

The methodology was then applied under two sets of assumptions, as summarized below under “Scenario 1” and “Scenario 2,” to give a range of estimated capital costs the elected officials may consider appropriate to capture Coburg’s increment of demand for capacity in treatment and conveyance facilities without subsidies from Eugene-Springfield area sewer customers. Under these scenarios, a rough estimate of a proportionate share of the long-range facilities planning efforts (described as item 4 above), based on Coburg’s estimated flow, the costs of the regional public involvement and decision making processes (item 5 above), and of existing support facilities (aside from facilities that are captured in the SDC methodology—item 2 above) were also provided as separate figures. These estimates would be common to both modeled scenarios, and therefore were added to both scenarios to provide an estimated “bottom line” buy-in cost. An expanded version of this cost recovery modeling results is provided in Attachment C. It should be noted that the analysis summarized below does not provide a comprehensive assessment of previous investments existing customers have made, through property taxes and user rates, which would support services to Coburg. The analyses also did not consider the costs associated with building a pipeline across the river or any potential improvements needed in the Eugene collection system to receive Coburg’s wastewater. The analysis did not consider a wide range of issues that would need to be evaluated by the Governing Bodies in establishing appropriate service, governance and accountability relationships with Coburg, all of which would have associated costs. At the time this analysis was conducted, a place holder amount of $300,000 was included. An updated estimate of the decision making costs is part of Attachment A. Finally, it should be noted that an estimate of ongoing costs, which would translate into Coburg sewer user fees, cannot be derived until the full range of services that would be provided to Coburg under an intergovernmental agreement is determined. However, given that Coburg does not currently provide ongoing sewer system maintenance, regulatory programs, sewer user customer services, and general administration, it should not be assumed that Coburg’s ongoing user rate costs would be equivalent to those paid by Eugene and Springfield sewer users. It is assumed, however, that the costs of services provided to Coburg such as intergovernmental coordination, technical assistance, and directly provided services by Eugene and/or Springfield would be made up through ongoing monthly wastewater fees. These fees could be assessed by various means, including as direct charges to individual customers, or as a single assessment to the City of Coburg. Summary of Connection Cost Scenarios Baseline Comparison Eugene local and MWMC SDC methodologies were applied to existing and projected developments in Coburg exactly as though they were located in the planned MWMC service area. Under the MWMC SDC methodology, part of the SDC charge is based on the cost of existing available capacity, and part is based on new capacity required. The total regional charge is based on a weighted average cost of existing available and new capacity. Strict application of this methodology to Coburg would not result in full cost recovery, because “existing available capacity” and “new capacity” pertain to planned customer demand inside the UGB through 2025. Similarly, the Eugene SDC methodology does not anticipate collection system improvements that may be needed to convey Coburg’s projected volume of flow. Page 8