Mayor Ron Littlefield’s proposal to establish a multi-jurisdictional governmental authority to manage the handling of local stormwater runoff, wastewater and sewage treatment, and possibly water utilities, makes good sense. But it will be a tough undertaking – never mind the federal and state water quality mandates and the multimillion-dollar consent decrees signed to meet them.
As always, it’s far easier for local water utility chiefs to mask their self-serving interests by criticizing the idea of consolidating anything, than it is for them to consider the larger public interest of merging dozens of duplicative management and utility offices, or of sensibly consolidating water-supply with water-return systems when these companies dig up streets and lay pipelines.
There are two compelling reasons to consider creating a larger water and wastewater treatment authority to expand the reach and multifunctional use of the current Hamilton County Water and Wastewater Treatment Authority, which itself is just beginning to act like a bona fide countywide organization.
One reason is that the Moccasin Bend sewage treatment system was built largely with federal money decades ago to treat the sewage and wastewater needs of this community’s section of the Tennessee River’s watershed. Thus the Moccasin Bend plant serves not just Hamilton County, but also much of Dade, Walker and Catoosa counties in North Georgia. The other main reason for consolidation of water quality work is that it’s the best way to provide the biggest bang for the buck in total water quality for everyone who lives in our watershed jurisdiction.
The geophysical, topographical logic of this multicounty, interstate arrangement is irrefutable. It boils down to the plumbers’ rule of physics: Water and sewage flow downhill. As Chattanooga’s mayor and the Moccasin Bend plant’s engineers say, “We’re at the bottom of the bowl, and everything flows to us.”