Bellingham City Council Approves the Sale of $48 Million in Sewer Expansion Bonds

On August 1, 2011 Bellingham City Council approved at third and final reading the $47 million in Post Point Sewer Plant expansion bonds. The approved $47 million bond issue will ultimately cost about $74 million in principal and interest payments over 30 years, based on the current Muni tax-free bond rate of 3.845% (Source: Bloomberg).

One council member, Jack Weiss voted against the bond; he felt the population of Bellingham is not expanding at a projected pace to warrant such a cost for the City of Bellingham. He felt alternatives of making simpler adaptations and changes to the Post Point Sewer Plant appear more cost effective.

My Whatcom Watch article of July 2011, Make the Old Mill into Something Useful, stressed researching and potentially using the old Georgia Pacific Paper Mill as a waste water treatment plant. The aerated basin there could prove most useful. However, the city is set on not using that site for anything but yachts. A panel of citizens continue working and researching on what to do with the old GP site.

At the Happy Valley Neighborhood Association meeting, private citizen, Henning Gatz presented a Norwegian system, the Salnes filter plan, estimated to cost at most $20 million; however, throughout my research process, Bellingham could earn $1,500,000 a year from selling the biogas. The plant could have earned $45 million in 30 years minus expenses spent on staff and equipment.

$45 million buys a lot of staff and expenses! Present Public Works staff expressed worry and concern about having to hire more workers for a methane type plant.

At the HVNA meeting, Bellingham’s Public Works Director Ted Carlson did say Bellingham would probably add a methane system in about five or more years. But that’s five or more years of adding green house gasses to this community and the world and not receiving the added income from the excrement or the benefits of a smaller plant.

Public Works Director Carlson said research had already been done. Unfortunately such past research was completed for the old system, not for methane filters. In his July 21 presentation to the HVNA meeting, the director is on record stating “there is only one gasification plant in the US and that is in Florida and that is having trouble.”

Director Carlson was seriously and disappointingly misinformed about methane plants. Methane plants are all over the United States:

There are 51 Norwegian type Salnes methane filter plants throughout the US, at least one in our state of Washington and in the following neighboring states: Oregon, Idaho, California, Alaska, and Montana. In addition, there are 13 in Canada; 47 in Europe; 35 in South America; 13 in Australia; 55 in Africa ; and 49 in Asia and the Middle East. The lengthy list is easily found on the Salnes web site.

However, Salnes are not the only manufacturer of methane type filters. Many different companies make and install methane type filters used in waste water treatment and sludge dewatering.

Readers may have noticed, if you have been to the Bellingham Farmers Market lately, some young people handing out flyers that read the slogan, “Re-energize Your Home: Choose Green Energy.”

Apparently, people throughout our county and city are paying Puget Sound Energy $10 a month extra on their power bill to obtain green energy, energy the power company acquires from solar, wind, and biogas. The biogas come from farms in Lynden and Ferndale, Wash.

So there are gasification plants in Whatcom County, maybe not for human excrement, but gasification plants none the less. Apparently, these types of systems require large amounts of land for drying the excrement. Does that mean we never should have built the sewer plant on prime beach front?

At the HVNA meeting, Public Works Director Carlson and Mr. Gatz answered excellent questions about both systems. The majority of the audience seemed to favor the Gatz’s presentation on the Salnes filter plan for its green energy, for its lower footprint, and for supplying potential local jobs.

However, Mr. Carlson said that the plant was a done deal back in 2007-8? Someone asked, what they were there for then? And why is the HVNA offered public comment? He said it was because he was asked to come speak.

I must admit to going home feeling extremely upset about the “done deal,” but then I realized most everyone attending the meeting had asked excellent questions. The meeting created an awareness that did not previously exist. §