Wayne Hamill

The Hamilton County Water and Wastewater Treatment Authority’s board may lift a self-imposed delay on an $8 monthly fee for 24,000 gravity sewer customers as early as next month, the board chairman said Wednesday.

“Hopefully that’s what we’ll be looking at in our August meeting,” Chairman Henry Hoss said.

During the board’s July meeting, Mr. Hoss said it could lift its hold on the fee “assuming we don’t hear anything of substance or significance” at two remaining public meetings about the fee plan. The remaining public meetings are in Soddy-Daisy and East Ridge.

The fee would go toward inspection and repairs of lines that connect homes to the main sewer line.

Mr. Hoss said the board may wait until September to lift the delay of the fee if the members so wish.

Whenever they decide, members will meet publicly and go over a document detailing the entire “private service lateral plan,” which would include the $8 fee.

Board members OK’d the fee in May but delayed its implementation when questions arose following its approval.

Wayne Hamill, who represents Red Bank on the board, said he thought “appropriate legal action” would be taken in the form of an injunction to stop implementing the fee, but he declined to provide further details.

Mr. Hamill and others have questioned whether the authority can legally go onto private property to make the repairs discussed in the plan.

John Anderson, the authority’s attorney, said he would discuss the legal aspects of the plan with board members at a September retreat at Chester Frost Park.

“By then I’ll have the ordinances from all the cities,” he said.

Red Bank officials have said the fee is unfair to the city, where customers already pay more than $8 per month to pay off debt for repairs made in the 1990s.

The authority has held public meetings in Red Bank and Lookout Mountain concerning the fee plan.

“We’ve had very low attendance,” Mr. Hoss said of those meetings. “We’ll see how many show up at the next two.”