The Eastsound Sewer and Water District board passed a resolution authorizing staff to secure permits and solicit bid proposals to install a two-inch sewer main inside the OPAL Commons. Residents of the seven acre, 18-home affordable housing development between Seaview Street and Blanchard Road will have until 2019 to hook to the main.

OPAL resident Ian Van Gelder said the total cost will run $10,000 to $12,000 per connection, based on a $6,000 connection fee, plus installation costs; Commissioner Ed Sutton estimates the cost at closer to $7,000. He said the district has received in $83,000 grants to defray the cost of installing the sewer main in the OPAL Commons. Although the district has offered the residents a low-interest financing plan, Van Gelder says it’s “not a debt (the residents) want to burden themselves with.”

Properties may be required to connect earlier if a home is sold or its current on-site septic system fails.

At a June 8 meeting Sutton said that under the Washington State Growth Management Act, San Juan County is required to provide urban level municipal wastewater treatment services to areas within the designated Urban Growth Area.

RCW 57.08.005 states that “A district shall have the following powers: … To compel all property owners within the district located within an area served by the district’s system of sewers to connect their private drain and sewer systems with the district’s system… The district may… enter upon private property and connect the private drains or sewers with the district system and the cost thereof shall be charged against the property owner…”

At an earlier May 25 meeting, Commissioner Ed Sutton told Van Gelder that, “as they reside within an area with sewer service … (OPAL Commons residents) did not have an option but to connect to the sewer system.” According to meeting minutes, Sutton said all properties located inside the district’s service area and within the UGA boundaries, including OPAL subdivisions, are required to connect to the sewer system.

Also in the minutes, “Commissioner Rollie Sauer stated that it was his opinion that the law (RCW 57) provides the District with the authority but does not mandate that the District require connection.”

The Growth Management Act, RCW 36.70A.020, states the following:

“The following goals are adopted to guide the development and adoption of comprehensive plans and development regulations… Ensure that those public facilities and services necessary to support development shall be adequate to serve the development at the time the development is available for occupancy and use…”

In a January 2009 Compliance Order the Western Washington GMA Hearings board held the county’s comprehensive plan “out of compliance… Because the capital facilities plan fails to provide for urban levels of sewer service to all areas of the UGA during the 20-year planning period, the boundaries of the UGA are not compliant with RCW 36.70A.110(3) and (4); and RCW 36.70A.020(12).

The county has since made changes to the plan and it has been dubbed compliant by the board.

The district is also not permitted to serve homes outside the UGA.

“We have a sewer running down a street, and we can only serve people on one side of the street,” said Sauer in frustration.

Sutton told the Sounder that someone needs to pay for the required infrastructure.

“The county has to commit that the services are available to support the growth, and therefore… everyone living within the Urban Growth Area is expected to participate and connect to the system; it’s illogical to build this thing and then don’t use it,” said Sutton.

On June 8 the board also discussed whether during the next nine years adequate technology might be developed that allows OPAL residents to treat their own “greywater” (wastewater not including human waste) using a new on-site system.

“In the next nine years, we may all be recycling our greywater in different manners,” said Greg Ayers.

But commissioner Sutton rejoined, “If there’s new technology, the district’s gonna do it. There’s no authority for anyone else to do it… you’re never going to get my vote for anything like that.”

According to Van Gelder, the OPAL Commons community has hired a Bellingham-based consulting firm 2020 Engineering to conduct a feasibility study for a sustainable enclosed alternative wastewater management system. The firm has designed successful and state-approved subsurface flow constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment in the past. OPAL residents’ concerns are both environmental and financial.

“Basically what we’re looking for is.. what can we do here that would be better, more environmentally sustainable, more environmentally sensitive than just hooking up to the sewer?” said Van Gelder. “We don’t think the status quo is okay.”

At the May meeting, he asked the board to wait until 2020 Engineering had completed their report, allowing the two-inch main to be sited in a location that won’t interfere with a possible alternative system in the future.

The board declined Van Gelder’s request. According to the minutes, Sutton told Van Gelder that “he did not understand what they hoped to accomplish from this exercise because they were on notice and required to connect to the sewer system before 2019.”

The board will invite OPAL representatives to attend the next meeting on June 22.