The bill for Brightwater is about to come due.
Snohomish County residents and businesses, which will not use the Brightwater sewage treatment plant until it opens in 2010, will start paying for its construction in January, said Christie True, Brightwater project director.
New homes and businesses that connect to King County’s wastewater treatment system after Jan. 1 will foot the construction costs, as will all new customers in King County, she said.
New customers will see their hookup fee go up 83 percent, from $18.60 a month now to $34.05 in January, a near doubling that is needed to pay the $1.48 billion it will cost to build the Brightwater plant.
Customers have to pay the fee for 15 years, or can choose to pay all at once at a discounted rate. The connection fee changes were reported to the King County Council on Wednesday.
King County currently has 164,000 customers in south central Snohomish County. That number is expected to increase to 207,000 by 2010, 271,000 by 2020 and 312,000 by 2030, numbers that show there will be plenty of new customers to pay for the sewage treatment plant planned near the corner of Highway 9 and Highway 522.
Other customers of King County’s sewer service will not pay more than the current $25.60 a month.
The increase in hookup fees is not linked to a $130 million run-up in the Brightwater construction bill.
True said King County could have increased the hookup fee even more to cover the construction bill run-up, but said, “We’re not recommending any change in those rates because this market is so volatile right now.”
Also on Wednesday, Brightwater officials reported that the cost of building the plant has grown to $1.48 billion from $1.35 billion because the cost of construction materials has shot up by 42 percent over the past year. The increase in the price of materials such as steel and concrete is linked to a building boom in China, the war in Iraq and recent hurricanes in the Southeast.
The bill would have been even higher – up to $1.62 billion – if Brightwater officials had not decided to shorten a tunnel to Puget Sound by six miles and build six fewer portals into the tunnel. Portals are access points that construction workers will use to build the tunnel.
Construction is scheduled to start in 2006 and the plant is expected to open in 2010.
Reporter Lukas Velush: 425-339-3449 or lvelush@heraldnet.com.
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