POULSBO — The Poulsbo City Council voted unanimously to go its own way to fund needed improvements to the region’s wastewater treatment plant.
“It’s not about whether we are going to do it or not going to do it,” Mayor Becky Erickson said before the council’s Jan. 21 meeting. “We have to have a sewer plant — it’s in Brownsville — and we have to pay our fair share. The issue is if we should bond out or go in with the county to pay for it.”
Poulsbo is partial owner, with Kitsap County, of the Central Kitsap Treatment Plant in Brownsville. The plant is in need of some upgrades, including some of the pipeline leading to the facility. The total cost for the various improvements could go up to $38.2 million, of which the city’s total share is $12.7 million. The city was presented with an option to go in with the county on bonds to pay for the upgrades, or go out for its own bonds. The council opted for the latter.
“This way, we can control the time of the payments and they will cost us less,” Erickson said. “It is a little less money for us, the second thing is the timing is better. We can match our cash flow with the actual construction projects. So we can pay when we want to pay, instead of paying in advance.”
Work on the treatment plant will cost an estimated $30 million; the city’s share is $5.7 million.
Pump stations 16 and 67 — which are located near Keyport — are due for improvements at a cost of $5.2 million, of which the city’s share is $4 million.
And finally, the Lemolo shoreline pipeline needs an upgrade. Its price tag is $3 million, all of which is the responsibility of the city to pay. Erickson noted that the city has plenty of funds in reserve to put toward bonds for the projects, and that sewage rates will not go up as a result of the work ahead.
Poulsbo’s sewage system is an extensive arrangement of pipes and pump stations that lead from its neighborhoods to Highway 305, then to Lemolo and under Liberty Bay, and on to Brownsville, where the main meets up with other lines from Bremerton and Central Kitsap.
Treated wastewater is discharged into Port Orchard Bay, 3,200 feet from the shoreline, 46 feet below the surface.
The treatment plant in Brownsville treated 1.25 billion gallons of sewage in 2012. During that year, the average daily flow was 3.4 million gallons, from which 95 percent of the suspended solids and 96 percent of biochemicals were removed before being released into Puget Sound.
Also in 2012, 895 dry tons of biosolids were sent to eastern and southwestern Washington for composting and use on land.
