Arnold Stulce

The Hamilton County Water and Wastewater Treatment Authority likely will vote next month on whether to implement an $8 monthly fee for 24,000 sewer customers, Chairman Henry Hoss said.

“The (fee) program has been inserted into our rules and regulations,” he said at Wednesday’s meeting of the authority board. “What we’ll be asking the board to do is receive that document for consideration.”

Board members approved the fee plan in May but decided to delay its implementation in order to hold four meetings to explain it to the public.

The $8 fee is part of a inspection and repair program meant to reduce the amount of rainwater that gets into the sewer system. The authority is under order from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to reduce the amount of such water it sends to the Moccasin Bend Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The plan, which involves repairs of lines that connect homes to the main sewer line, has raised the ire of some sewer customers and officials, such as former Tennessee state Rep. Arnold Stulce, D-Soddy-Daisy.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Mr. Stulce criticized the board for its handling of the public meetings in Red Bank, Lookout Mountain, Soddy-Daisy and East Ridge. Mr. Stulce attended the Soddy-Daisy meeting.

“You were not coming to get any input from us,” he said. “You came to tell us what you were going to do. Quite frankly, I resent that.”

Mr. Hoss said at last month’s authority meeting that the board would consider lifting the hold on the fee “assuming we don’t hear anything of substance or significance” in the public meetings.

Mr. Stulce said it is not fair for residents in Soddy-Daisy, where the sewers are relatively new, to pay for other customers’ sewer repairs.

“The private citizen is responsible for the sewer that’s on his property,” he said.

Mr. Hoss has argued that the $8 fee is fair and keeps individual homeowners from having to pay up to $5,000 to repair their own lines.

Officials have estimated about half of the authority’s customers will need some sort of repair to their sewer lines.

Former Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Don Loftis also criticized the fee plan at Wednesday’s meeting.

“You made the decision before you had the (public) meetings,” he told the board. “I think that was sort of un-American.”