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About 1,500 homeowners connecting to central sewer will save about $250 annually in assessment fees thanks to more than $25 million in loans and grants provided to Sussex County’s Angola Neck Sewer District.
The sewer district has received more than $25 million in federal, state and county loans and grants to aid in the $33 million cost of the project.
Officials said many area homes have failing septic systems.
Federal, state and county officials gathered Friday, Aug. 29, in a packed Angola by the Bay community house to announce the funding.
Other announcements of millions of dollars to aid in funding for sewer expansions may be few and far between. “After two years of deficits, it’s going to be more difficult to subsidize rates in the future,” said Sussex County Councilman Vance Phillips. “But we will do everything we can in the future.”
James Andrew, administrator, U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development Rural Utilities Service, said the demand for funding of projects like this far outweighs the available funds.
He told Angola Neck residents they were fortunate to receive the funding package with a backlog of nearly $3 billion in water and wastewater projects across the nation.
“But the real number is more like $1 trillion to meet all the requirements,” he said. “You are very lucky to get this project done now.”
Among those in attendance were U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, just back from the Democratic Convention in Denver, Colo., and U.S. Rep. Mike Castle, who was getting ready to leave for the Republican Convention in St. Paul, Minn.
The district will provide central sewer to 10 communities in the Inland Bays including Angola by the Bay, Villages at Herring Creek, The Woods on Herring Creek, Bay Ridge Woods, Angola Neck Park, Angola Neck Acres, Angola Crest I and II, The Cove and Herring Pointe.
Not included in the plan is Angola Beach and Estates, a large manufactured home development in the middle of the sewer district. Izzo said the development has a sewer system in place and asked to be excluded from the district.
The funding package includes $8 million in U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development funds – $6.4 million in loans and grants from the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, known as the farm bill, and $1.6 million in grants from Rural Development’s annual budget. The loan portion is for 40 years at 2.75 percent interest.
It also includes $16.5 million in state funding - a $15 million loan through the state revolving fund and a $1.5 million grant from the 21st Century Fund.
The county has also granted $1 million to the project to help lower the overall cost and make it more affordable for users.
Since 1993, about 13,000 septic systems have been added to central systems – most as part of the Sussex County system - but there are about 23,000 remaining in the area, said David Small, deputy director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.
“This project represents another successful partnership so critical to improving water quality in the Inland Bays,” Small said. “It brings us another step closer to our ultimate goal of eliminating nutrients from entering these environmentally sensitive bays. We are not in a sprint; it’s a marathon we are in.”
“This will help to protect our Inland Bays,” Castle said. “This is money extraordinarily well spent, which is not what I can say for all money spent in Washington. You have improved your circumstances and improved the environment for all of us.”
“Residents are not the only ones who will benefit from extended sewer service,” Carper said.
“This project has an environmental impact, as well. Eliminating some 1,500 septic systems means less of a chance of these systems failing and releasing harmful nitrates into the groundwater and our Inland Bays.”
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Part-time residents question Sussex County fee structure
Not all homeowners are happy with the expansion of central sewer in the Angola Neck area.
During a question-and-answer period following the announcement Friday, Aug. 29, of significant funding from federal and state sources, several summer-only residents asked why they had to pay an annual fee that could not be prorated to exclude the months they did not live in the development.
Mike Izzo, county engineer, said the county system is designed so that all residents who hook up pay an annual fee to help pay the mortgage on the infrastructure to build the system.
“This is the system Sussex County has selected and we are choosing to keep it in place,” Izzo said.
Izzo said bids would go out in January 2009 for the first phase with some residents in Angola by the Bay going on line in October 2010.
Izzo said the favorable interest rate of 2.75 percent for a portion of the funding in addition to the competitive bidding climate should help lower rates to residents.
Estimates have residents paying a one-time $3,300 impact fee, an annual assessment fee of $8.91 per front footage (maximum of 100 feet at $1,177) and $286 per equivalent dwelling unit per quarter. That does not include costs for plumbers to connect homes to the new system and pump out and fill the existing septic tank. There is also a $100 permit fee to hook into the system. The loans and grants combine for a savings of about $250 a year per resident in the annual assessment, Izzo said.
The average homeowner could pay from $4,500 to $5,000 to hook into the system the first month.
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