Water commissioners question possible utility shift in Norris
The Norris Water Commission meets on Friday, Dec. 31, during which Richard Dyer, far left, who was recovering from COVID, was appointed chairman, and Sue Hill, third from right, was named vice chair. City Councilwoman Loretta Painter, third from left, took her seat on the commission as the newly appointed representative from the City Council. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
During the Water Commission’s Friday meeting, during which Painter took her seat as the City Council’s new representative on the commission, Commissioner Marguerite Wilson asked Painter what “the problem is” with the current setup that would lead the council to consider changing it.
“I missed the meeting,” Wilson said of the Dec. 12 City Council meeting in which Painter proposed the special session to discuss changes to the way Norris utilities are managed.
“So I would like to know what the problem is … just so I can prepare. … And what are the benefits for doing away with the [Water] Commission?” Wilson said.
Painter noted that there was no discussion during the Dec. 12 council meeting about “doing away with” the Water Commission, only that she wanted to have “a conversation” about changes in the setup.
“The motion was to schedule a meeting to have a conversation about making the utilities a department,” she said, just like the Police, Fire and Public Works departments, whose department heads are hired and managed by the city manager.
“Of course, there would be changes in the scope of the board,” Painter added.
“The benefit is that we have hired a professional city manager, and as a councilperson, I would like to have one person to go to for all my questions. It would be set up just like the police department.”
Painter’s motion passed unanimously, and the special “workshop” meeting has been set for 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 31, at the council meeting room at the Norris Community Center.
Mayor Chris Mitchell said at the Dec. 12 meeting that he approved of the idea of discussing the possibility of making the change.
“Part of the reason we need to look at this is because we’re adding an assistant city manager and we need to look at how the city organization can find some efficiencies,” he said.
Although Painter made no mention during the council meeting about changes to the Water Commission, she told The Courier News that she could see the commission being changed to where it is made up entirely of the elected members of the City Council, rather than being a separate board as it is now, with members appointed by the City Council.
Painter told the other water commissioners during last Friday’s meeting that such a change could be made through city ordinance, and that it would not require a change in the city charter.
Water commissioners also suggested that the City Council should have consulted with them about the possible changes before bringing the idea up during the council meeting. While such a consultation could likely have involved violations of the Tennessee Open Meetings Law, Painter said there was no obligation on the council’s part to give the Water Commission any advance notice.
As it is, the water commissioners will have had more than a month-and-a-half’s notice before the actual City Council “conversation” takes place as scheduled Jan. 31.
Water commissioners also asked whether the council’s special meeting to discuss the utility department idea could be postponed to a later date that would be more convenient to them.
Utility Superintendent Tony Wilkerson even asked whether the meeting “even needs to be in January,” to which Painter replied, “Yes, I believe it does.”
Painter’s move to bring the utilities under control of the city manager comes as Norris continues to struggle with state mandates to correct environmental violations in the city’s wastewater-treatment operations, which eventually will cost the city potentially in excess of $7 million. The price tag could be considerably more if construction of a new sewage treatment plant is required.
The City Council gave its approval in May 2022 to a plan from the Water Commission that calls for spending at least about $5.5 million to fix problems with stormwater overloading the city’s sanitary sewer system during heavy rains.
The council also approved the wording of a letter Mayor Chris Mitchell sent to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation in response to a “director’s order” from the department that found the city in violation of water-quality regulations concerning discharges from the city’s sewage-treatment plant.
The city hired Cannon & Cannon Consulting Engineers of Knoxville to create the plan to remedy the violations. That plan, submitted to the council during the regular May council meeting, called for making the required repair beginning as soon as possible, with an estimated completion date of late 2028.
Under the engineers’ plan, the price for the bulk of the work was estimated to be $5.488 million, with a potential bill as high as nearly $7 million. That does not include the possibility the city might need to install a 750,000-gallon holding tank for stormwater runoff, at an additional cost of more than $2.1 million.
The money to pay for the upgrades will come from a “combination of grants, debt and increased sewer rates” to customers, Mayor Mitchell has said.
The engineers have been testing the sanitary sewer system to find leaks and other problems that allow stormwater to enter the system.
Norris is under pressure from the Division of Water Resources to fix the stormwater runoff issue, or end up paying $23,460 in fines – or more -- for violations of state regulations regarding discharge of polluted water Buffalo Creek.
The city already has paid $4,692 of that fine to the state, and would be on the hook for the rest unless its remediation plan is carried out as scheduled.
The city contracted with Cannon & Cannon for $300,000 to study the sanitary sewer system to find out where the stormwater is entering the system during heavy rains, which can add a million gallons of water per day to the system and overwhelm the treatment plant, just off East Norris Road near Andersonville Highway.
Under state law, the city cannot use property taxes to fund the repairs, and also may not add any of those expenses to water bills.
Instead, the city must get grants and/or borrow money to pay for the upgrades, and then pay off the loans using higher sewer rates for customers. About three-fourths of Norris water customers – around 600 – also have sewer service, and would have to pay the higher sewer rates.
The estimates in the plan submitted to the council didn’t include a possible replacement of the city’s aging wastewater treatment plant, which was built in 1936 and last upgraded in the 1960s.
The sewage treatment plant is designed to process up to about 200,000 gallons of wastewater per day, and normally gets about 100,000 gallons per day. But when it rains, that can push the flow into the plant beyond 1 million gallons a day.
Most of that gets bypassed around the treatment plant and discharged into Buffalo Creek, at a point south of Andersonville Highway, near the Chunky Monkey restaurant.
While that dumped water does get treated with chlorine to get rid of bacteria, the chemical pollutants in it are not removed, the Water Commission said.
The mayor received a “Director’s Order and Assessment” from TDEC’s Division of Water Resources in February detailing the violations, which allegedly occurred from May 1, 2019, through Nov. 30, 2021.
City officials noted that the pollution problems are only with the sewer system, and have nothing to do with the city’s drinking water, which has long been considered to be of outstanding quality.