AUBURN – Sewer rates could go much higher within a few years if Congress approves the Bush administration’s proposed budget cuts for environmental protection funding.
Auburn Water and Sewerage District General Manager Norm Lamie said that financial burdens for federally mandated environmental projects would shift from the federal government to municipalities and water districts.
“The shift is to the local taxpayers and local rate payers, but there is no talk about shifting the mandates,” Lamie said.
The Bush administration’s proposed budget would cut environmental programs by 10 percent next year and 23 percent by 2010. The Environmental Protection Agency’s clean water projects would lose a total of $700 million.
Congress is expected to consider the budget on Monday. A final vote will come in a few weeks.
If Congress approves the cuts, the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund, which provides states with low-interest loans to fund sewage treatment improvements, would be hard hit in 2006. Maine’s share would drop from $8.4 million this year to $5.6 million in 2006. Those cuts are expected to reduce the availability of low-interest loans to Auburn and Lewiston.
The mandates that Lamie referred to include elimination of combined sewer overflows, or CSOs, which are sewer pipes that carry both wastewater and stormwater. A federal mandate requires elimination of the combined flow. Both Auburn and Lewiston spend millions of dollars annually to eliminate combined flows.
“Over the past 15 years, the State Revolving Loan Fund has helped fund $26 million in water-related public improvement projects in Lewiston-Auburn. This significant investment was required to replace aging infrastructure and to help the Lewiston-Auburn communities comply with more stringent environmental regulations,” Lamie said.
“The State Revolving Loan Fund Program provides an economical means to undertake these important projects by providing low-interest loan rates that are 2 percent under market rates for typical tax-exempt municipal bonds,” he said.
He said the revolving loan program has generated an estimated savings of about $6.5 million for Auburn and Lewiston.
“I’ve estimated if we didn’t have the low-interest funding since 1991, the rates would be 6 percent higher,” Lamie said.
The CSO projects and other clean water projects are working, Lamie said. “The improvement in water quality of the Androscoggin River over the last 30 years has been nothing short of astounding. While much work has already been completed, much more remains,” he said.
Comments are no longer available on this story