Funding Update and Hookup Surveys Completed

SEELEY LAKE - The Seeley Lake Sewer District (SLSD) received an update on funding from the United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development (RD). Managers also updated the board on the hookup surveys.

District Managers met with RD and were told that the district did not receive funding from the 2014-2015 allocation. The district is in the next round of funding for the 2015-2016 federal fiscal year’s allocation to Montana through RD.

“We knew that [not receiving funding from the 2014-15 allocation] was a possibility,” said Manager Amy Rose. “It was a big ‘if’ because it was the last of the federal pool [for 2014-2015].

The current year’s allocations have not been set but are expected to come out toward the end of 2015 or early in 2016. Representatives of RD indicated that the SLSD would receive an offer for a funding package out of that allocation.

The funding package is expected to be a mixture of grants and loans for Phase I of the collection system and construction of the proposed wastewater treatment facility.

Surveyors from Great West Engineering (GW) began surveying individual hookups for Phase I Sept. 21.

Phase I of the collections system includes all commercial property on the east side of Highway 83, between Cedar Lane and Redwood Lane. Also included are all properties between Tamarack Drive and Highway 83 that are north of Redwood Lane and south of Larch Lane, including all properties fronting Larch Lane and Pine Drive, north to Cedar Lane.

Rose reported to the board that the surveying was completed and GW had nearly 100 percent cooperation from landowners. In fact, only one landowner refused to let them on to the property.

“That is amazing to me and it tells me that this community is behind this concept,” said Manager Greg Robertson.

“The only concern they [GW] heard repeatedly was cost [of the proposed sewer system],” added Rose.

The information collected will allow GW to better estimate the cost of individual hookups. Landowners who cooperated are in no way obligated to hook to the system if it is built. The district is continuing its stance that those hookups will be free to the landowners during system construction.

Landowners who choose not to be hooked up will be responsible for the costs individually if they are ever forced to hookup. That can happen if their system fails or a regulating agency requires it at a later date.

A special work session with the SLSD board and GW engineers is scheduled for 9 a.m., Nov. 6 at the Missoula County Satellite Office on Highway 83.

The next regular sewer district board meeting is scheduled for 5:15 p.m., Oct. 15 at the Missoula County Satellite Office.