The Gary Sanitary District board approved wastewater user rate increases Friday for the communities of Hobart, Lake Station and the Merrillville Conservancy District.
The unanimous 4-0 vote came on the recommendation of GSD executive director Ragen Hatcher, who represents Hobart and Lake Station in the General Assembly, where she holds the District 3 House seat.
The resolution states the new rates will be effective Sept. 1. They include a volume charge of $2.82 per thousand gallons of wastewater discharged and a monitoring fee of $1,844 per month.
There could be additional fees if discharges exceed levels of ammonia, phosphorus, carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand, or total suspended solids.
Hobart Mayor Josh Huddlestun urged the board to negotiate with the communities.
“The city of Hobart is not opposed to a rate increase; we’re simply asking for a good faith negotiation… we understand everything is going up,” Huddlestun said.
He urged the board to decline or table the rate increase resolution.
Hatcher said its Indianapolis-based legal counsel, Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, recommended the user fee rate increase based on direction from the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“We are under a requirement of the DOJ to make these changes to our rates,” Hatcher told the board.
Hatcher said the rate increase would go to support the long-term control plan for combined sewer overflows. Gary has been under a federal consent decree for decades because of past overflows polluting streams, rivers and Lake Michigan.
In a statement released Tuesday, GSD officials said its consent decree calls for $155 million in sewer system improvements over the next 15 years — nearly $12 million annually.
“This rate adjustment is one of several actions required by federal regulators as part of the Long-Term Control Plan,” the statement said.
On Jan 15, the GSD and the city of Gary filed a federal lawsuit against Hobart, Lake Station and the Merrillville Conservancy District seeking a declaratory judgment to pave the way to raise user rate fees for treating their wastewater.
That case is still pending in federal court.
The two sides had been in negotiations for months. The user communities hired Indianapolis law firm Dentons Bingham Greenbaum LLP to negotiate and propose a settlement on their behalf.
Gary responded with the federal lawsuit in January, contending the user rates for the three communities are decades old and too low to meet the requirements of a federal consent decree.
The GSD first entered a wastewater treatment agreement with Lake Station in 1982. The complaint said the agreement expired in 2002, and GSD continued to provide treatment services under an implied fact contract at the 1982 rate.
Hobart entered a contract with GSD in 1984 and GSD signed a pact with the MCD in 1995.
Carole Carlson is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
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