TRAVERSE CITY -- Septic tank owners, taxpayers, or both likely will end up on the hook for an expected $300,000 hole in Grand Traverse County's septage treatment plant budget.
Some township supervisors on Friday discussed finding new revenue sources, including industrial or food processing waste, or finding a buyer for the troubled plant.
Their discussion came days after CMS Energy said it will cease trucking contaminated water to the county's septage plant and left officials scrambling for a fix.
Garfield Township Supervisor Chuck Korn called the new revenue hunters "pretenders" during a meeting of officials from five townships that guaranteed $7.8 million in plant bond payments.
"It's a failure, just a failure," Korn said. "People have been playing delay and pretend for over a year now. We have to stop playing pretend. No one's going to buy it, there's absolutely no upside."
The financial crisis began Tuesday when CMS said it will stop shipping groundwater leachate from Bay Harbor Resort in Petoskey. CMS was on pace in 2010 to truck an estimated 27 million gallons of contaminated water worth about $800,000 to the plant.
Acme Township Supervisor Wayne Kladder said officials may be able to trim $40,000 to $50,000 from the plant's budget. County officials should consider increasing the per-gallon rate on septage, already the highest in the state, by a half-cent.
"I don't know if 12 and a half cents is enough; we may have to go higher," said Elmwood Township Supervisor Jack Kelly. "And at this point, like it or not, we have to put back on the table the idea of a special assessment."
All options must be considered, Kelly said, but he acknowledged the plant's financial losses eventually may burden the general funds of Elmwood, Acme, Garfield, East Bay and Peninsula townships.
The county board has pumped general fund money into the septage plant in recent years, but commissioners often contended its financial picture suggested better times, thanks in large part to CMS' contribution of nearly $2 million from Bay Harbor over the last four years.
County Commissioner Ross Richardson said users must fund the plant, not county taxpayers, many of whom have sewer connections to Traverse City's wastewater treatment plant.
Richardson said he believed the county and townships made progress last summer when they proposed a $45 annual special assessment on all septic tank owners, but "everyone got gun shy."
But the loss of CMS revenue means a special assessment alone will not address the plant's financial woes, county Commissioner Beth Friend said.
"Unless I'm looking at this wrong, you had two options, either special assessment or general fund dollars, and now you may be looking at both," Friend said.
