Caledonia residents are likely to feel the sting of the rate hike affecting water and sewer now that the weather has heated up. Resident Charles Underhill expressed his displeasure with the rate hike during Tuesday’s regular Board of Aldermen meeting.
A long-discussed sewer rate hike went into effect June 1, with the impact hitting customers’ mailboxes with their July statements.
Under the new rate structure, residential customers within the city limits will pay a sewer rate equal to 50 percent of their water bill and commercial customers will pay a sewer rate that is 100 percent of their water bill.
“I’ve got to pay it, but that don’t mean I like it,” Underhill said.
Water Superintendent Benny Coleman Coleman said 354 residential and commercial customers will be affected by the rate increase. Previously, the minimum water bill was $12.00 for 2,000 gallons and the sewer bill was a flat rate of $6.60. The average residential water and sewer bill was $28.50.
Commercial customers have been paying a sewer rate that is 50 percent of their water bills.
Sewer rates last were raised in 1992, when they increased from $3.60 to $6.60.
Coleman said the sewer rate increase is necessary to fund requirements, by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, associated with repermitting the town’s wastewater facilities.
Fly problems
A Lawrence Drive resident came before the Board of Aldermen to discuss a pesky problem: Flies are making life miserable.
Tim Sullivan said when he and his wife, Lisa, moved into the neighborhood three years ago, they weren’t concerned their yard was near the town’s lagoon, where treated wastewater is discharged.
But with the advent of summer, flies are making any sort of outdoor activity “unbearable,” Tim Sullivan said. It’s so bad that even though he likes the neighborhood, he admitted he may not have purchased his home, if he had known his only party guests would be of the winged variety.
At one time, the town sprayed the lagoon area for mosquitoes, but stopped because crews had to traverse private property to do so and didn’t know how effective the spray is against the flies, said Caledonia Mayor George Gerhart.
Larvicide dunks — large chemical-laced tablets placed in water to kill mosquitoes — are a possibility, Alderman Quinn Parham suggested, but Coleman said he’s not sure what effect the chemicals would have on the biochemical processes within the lagoon.
Coleman dismissed Sullivan’s concerns illegal dumping may be taking place, noting the board has approved one person — David Knight, who professionally installs and pumps Caledonia septic tanks — to dump wastewater for a fee and Knight is following proper procedure.
Though Coleman and Gerhart agreed spraying for mosquitoes might help, Town Attorney Jeff Smith cautioned the board against taking any sort of action or recording any motions in the minutes, lest it come back to haunt them.
The matter was turned over to Coleman, with the advice he do whatever necessary to help the homeowner with the issue.
“You can’t even cook out,” Sullivan said. “It’s ridiculous.”
Blighted properties
Another perennial summer problem is overgrown lots and Water Department Office Manager Cathy Brown brought several local eyesores to the aldermen’s attention.
Parham advocated writing an ordinance to deal with the issue, but the board decided to have Smith send warning letters to residents on Wells Drive, North Church Street and Old Wolf Road.
If the properties are not cleaned by a specified date, the town will be authorized to mow the lots at a cost to the residents.
The board again will meet Saturday at 9 a.m. for a work session to discuss the size requirements for a new municipal complex. The meeting is open to the public.
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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