The city commissioners will meet with Sussex County engineers to present the county’s report on a joint land-application project at the Friday, Sept. 4 workshop. According to the county’s preliminary estimates, the cheapest alternative for city consumers – as far as user rates are concerned – is ocean outfall. However, the county voted last year not to participate in a joint ocean-outfall project.

Mayor Sam Cooper said the city has been waiting for the county report before moving forward, and now that it has it, the city can start to focus on choosing an alternative and move forward.

While the city does not have a firm cost yet on spray irrigation, an ocean-outfall project has been priced at $35 million, if the city goes alone.

Cooper said he is not sure what the county will do at this point. The city and the county have a mutual interest in the Rehoboth project because Rehoboth also treats wastewater from Dewey Beach and Henlopen Acres. While the council has expressed a desire for land application, Cooper said it was not a slam-dunk the county would go that route.

Also in play is the Clean Water Advisory Council, which will be helping the city secure funding for whatever alternative is chosen. Cooper said the council has told the city to bring council a project before it will consider how much funding the city could receive.

Commissioner Stan Mills laid out a timeline to make a decision on the wastewater alternative. Mills said he hopes the city would decide on an alternative by the end of the year. The city is under a consent order to have zero discharge into the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal by December 2014. At the Friday, Aug. 21 commissioners’ meeting, Mills proposed a series of meetings to gradually work toward making a final decision. Cooper said the city needed to start moving independently of county council and the clean water council.

“I think its time we start to take our own destiny in our own hands,” he said.

Commissioner Paul Kuhns suggested holding a referendum for citizens to vote on which alternative they want before the commissioners vote. However, this idea did not gain much traction amongst the commissioners.

Commissioner Dennis Barbour suggested putting up a simple summary on the city website of why the city is exploring a wastewater alternative.

“It seems like we’re buried in minutiae and detail, and we’re losing sight of why we are doing this in the first place,” he said. “We need to find a really simple way of explaining this to the public.”