WWTA figures out pay plan for plumbers

Hamilton County commissioners will vote next week whether to give local plumbers the opportunity to do work for the county's Water and Wastewater Treatment Authority without having to go through a lengthy bidding process.

"If we start bidding these jobs, we'll spend all our time bidding and very little of our time working," Mike Carter, attorney for the authority, said at Thursday's County Commission meeting.

The authority is working on a plan to inspect service lines that run from 24,000 gravity sewer customers' homes to the main sewer line. Mr. Carter said the authority would prefer local plumbers do that work, for which customers are paying an $8 monthly fee.

The commission will vote Wednesday on a resolution to categorize licensed master plumbers who go through the authority's certification program as "professionals" under the county's purchasing rules.

With that distinction in place, the authority can pay the plumbers a standard rate per foot, plus surcharges for deeper lines or obstructions like driveways, Mr. Carter said. That rate will be set in accordance with a study by an outside engineering firm, he said.

Soddy-Daisy Mayor Gene Shipley, owner of Shipley Plumbing Co., said that pay structure is "the best plan we can have for it."

"It's going to put so many local plumbing contractors to work," he said. "It's better than it being outsourced."

Mr. Shipley said he believed plumbers will go along with the prices the authority sets.

The plan Mr. Carter put forward Thursday was quite different from one the authority and plumbers discussed a few months ago. That one would have required bids for nonemergency work and for plumbers to obtain permits for jobs.

RAIN INFILTRATION

The inspection and repair plan that includes the $8 fee for gravity sewer customers is the Hamilton County Water and Wastewater Treatment Authority's response to an order from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation ordering the authority to remove rainwater from their system. Mike Carter, attorney for the authority, said the system sends about 900,000 gallons of water to the Moccasin Bend Wastewater Treatment Plant on a normal day. On a day with half an inch of rain, that amount increases to 1.4 million gallons, he said.