Southside Water ends moratorium

SAGLE — Six years in limbo came to an end on Friday when the Southside Water and Sewer District lifted its moratorium on service.

In place since October 2004, the self-imposed moratorium prohibited Southside from offering additional hook-ups. All that changed with Southside’s acquisition of an $850,000 no-interest loan from the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality. Southside will repay the loan over a 20 year period. To finance the payments, Jim Haynes, chairman of Southside board of directors, says they will potentially raise monthly rates by a maximum of $8.17 but anticipates the actual fee increases to be much lower.

The loan money allowed Southside to repair a lift station and install a drip irrigation system on its 40 acre application site to improve the dispersal of treated waste water. This will allow the utility to expand the perimeters of their irrigation zone. Thanks to those enhancements, Haynes says Southside anticipates offering hook-ups to an expanded clientele.

“Right now we’re looking at offering an additional 50 hook-ups,” he said. “After that, we’re hoping to get another 50 or 60 ready to go.”

It will take time to meet the full demand of the district. Those 50 spots will be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis in an area where 199 people have partially paid for a hook-up through their land development fees and have yet to be served.

“A lot of those people paid for their hook-up at a point when the fees were significantly lower than they are now,” Haynes said. “It’s just a matter of them paying the remaining fees to secure service.” 

Currently, 14 people have covered the difference for current hook-up fees, leaving 36 up for grabs. In the longer term, Southside aims to purchase nearby land to further increase their hook-up capacity by another 50 or 60. 

“A lot of work has gone into getting to this point, but now the real work begins,” Haynes said.

The moratorium originated when IDEQ issued the district a new Wastwater Land Application Permit, which restricted the Southside’s land application of treated wastewater to less acreage than they needed for their consumer base. To address the issue, Southside applied with the Environmental Protection Agency to discharge treated effluent into the Pend Oreille River. The EPA granted a provisional access but withheld the final permit after the opposing public raised some concerns. This decision forced Southside to issue a temporary moratorium in April 2004 and a permanent one in October.

“The process of ending this moratorium was long and drawn-out,” Haynes said. “We’re glad to finally be done with it.”