Norris faces sewer rate hike
-
Norris Utility Superintendent Tony Wilkerson, right, discusses business with the Norris Water Commission during the group’s Monday night meeting (June 16), as City Manager Adam Ledford looks on. The main topic of discussion was the need to increase sewer-service rates to help pay for state-mandated system upgrades. - G. Chambers Williams III
-
Clinon FC Middle School’s soccer team received a proclamation from the Anderson County Board of Education at its Thursday, June 12, meeting for its first season. Pictured are from left, Coach Carl Nielsen, Tylen Cook, Jarren Lin, Jordan Cuevas, Fabio Esplinosa, Tucker Nielsen, Sam McMurray, Spencer Smith, Jack Hazuda, Coach Jack McMurray and Board of Education Chairman Scott Gillenwaters. - G. Chambers Williams III
As Norris prepares for work on the first sewer upgrades to begin — among a planned series of projects that will eventually cost is excess of $6.6 billion — residents also are facing increased sewer bills to pay for the work, which has been mandated by Tennessee environmental regulators.
The Norris Water Commission on Monday night directed the city staff, including Utility Superintendent Tony Wilkerson and City Manager Adam Ledford, to begin preparing a proposal to bring back to the commission as early as this fall on just how much the rate increase or increases need to be to support the planned projects.
Residents who have water and sewer service already pay a monthly minimum utility bill of $105.70, which includes $18.10 for trash (which drops to $15 on July 1), $29.59 for the first 2,000 gallons of water, $55.01 for sewer service (up to 2,000 gallons), and $3 for stormwater service.
Just how much higher the bills may go still must be determined, Ledford told The Courier News, but he said residents should begin seeing the increased sewer charges on their bills as early as January.
Monday night, Ledford told the water commissioners, who are also the same five people who sit on the Norris City Council, that sewer rates must be increased in order for the city to receive low-interest State Revolving Fund loans to help pay for the rehab work on the system.
While the city has received some grants to cover part of the work, the so-called SRF loans will have to provide the rest of the money, Ledford said.
Hurst Excavating LLC. of Knoxville plans to begin work July 14 on a $851,455 contract from the city for the first phase of the sewer-line upgrades, which in this first phase will be mostly along East Norris Road.
The project includes replacing older sewer lines to help reduce the influx of stormwater runoff that overwhelms the city’s sewage-treatment plant following significant rainfall.
The contract, approved April 14 by the council, will cover about 25% of the sanitary-sewer system, Ledford said earlier.
“These are the areas most in need of repair or replacement to reduce load levels at the sewer plant,” he said.
The work is expected to cause some traffic disruptions, mainly on East Norris Road, as the lines are uncovered, Ledford said. “There will be very little damage to roads.”
In conjunction with that, the council voted June 9 to award a bid for repaving a section of East Norris Road from the Commons to Pine Road. Ledford said the city already has money in the budget to cover that portion, but also plans to extend the work from Pine Road to Cedar Place, near Andersonville Highway, when money is available for that.
As for the sewer project, excess runoff of stormwater into the city’s sewer system has caused the city to run afoul of state environmental regulations.
Since early 2022, Norris has been under a “director’s order” from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to clean up its discharge of sewage into Buffalo Creek, just south of the sewer plant, which is on the west side of East Norris Road just north of Andersonville Highway.
The department found the city in violation of water-quality regulations concerning those discharges bypassing the sewage-treatment plant.
Last year, the city also set up a new Stormwater Department under control of the city manager, with the goal of creating a better system of managing stormwater runoff than what the city now has, which includes some stormwater collection lines mostly along city streets.
The problem is that during periods of heavy rain, stormwater infiltrates the city’s sanitary sewer system, causing an unmanageable flow to the city’s sewer plant.
There, the excess stormwater mixes with raw sewage, and because it can quickly overwhelm the treatment facility, this combination of sewage and stormwater ends up bypassing the treatment plant, and gets dumped into nearby Buffalo Creek.
The city in early 2022 hired Cannon & Cannon Consulting Engineers of Knoxville to create a plan to remedy the violations. That plan, submitted to the council in May 2022, called for making the required sewer-system repairs 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 $6.6 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 city also will be required to update its sewage-treatment plant. Norris is hoping to get help from other nearby utility systems to pay for the new sewer plant.
