PORT ANGELES — A team of students from Bainbridge Graduate Institutes has concluded that the benefits of a proposed sewer project in Carlsborg would outweigh the challenges.
That conclusion is unlikely to satisfy many Carlsborg residents who oppose the controversial project and its yet-to-be-determined costs.
Six graduate business students from BGI briefed the Clallam County commissioners and Clallam County Public Utility District commissioners Monday on the findings of their research project steered through the Clallam County Economic Development Council.
No action was taken by either board.
The Master of Business Administration students sent surveys to 50 Carlsborg business owners.
Of the 16 responses, 11 said they would expand their business if a sewer were built and the county cleared its final hurdle with the state Growth Management Act.
Half of the limited sample said they would likely relocate if a sewer wasn’t built and the existing Carlsborg Urban Growth Area dissolved.
A state Growth Management Act hearings board ruled the Carlsborg growth area as invalid in April 2008 because it lacked a sewer or a plan for a sewer.
The county has repeatedly extended interim zoning rules to stay within the law while planners develop the $15 million to $17 million “Class A” sewer and wastewater treatment facility off Carlsborg Road.
In the state’s two-year budget that passed last month, the Carlsborg project was approved for a $10 million loan from the Public Works Trust Fund.
Sewer proponents said the project would reduce harmful nitrates in drinking water and marine areas by recharging the aquifer with clean water.
Opponents, mostly single-family-home owners with functioning septic systems, have questioned the science behind the nitrate claim.
Commissioner Steve Tharinger, who is also a state legislator, has said the project would sustain 1,100 jobs in the industry and business that would result.
“I think, quite frankly, it can be a false choice: jobs or the environment,” said Tharinger, who represents Carlsborg and the eastern third of the county.
“There’s actually a way to really find that synthesis, he said. “To find that balance with the long term sustainability and good environmental stewardship can also mean jobs.”
The BGI team divided stakeholders into two camps: supporters of the sewer and supporters of existing septic systems.
“[Sewer supporters] want to see this thing completed,” said Brett Lyon, a BGI student from Portland, Ore.
“The reason is the restrictions on growth that were put on by the [Western Washington] Growth Management Hearings Board aren’t allowing businesses to expand. There’s no residential or industrial growth that’s allowed to happen right now.
“On the other hand is the people who support the septic system. For a lot of these people, they don’t see a need for a sewer project. They don’t see anything wrong with the septic systems that they have currently in place,” Lyon said.
“And then there’s also the issue of cost. A lot of the septic rate people that would be put into the sewer system don’t know how much the sewer project will affect them personally and economically.”
To help answer that question, the county and PUD approved an agreement in March for a sewer facilities plan and for the formation of a local utility district.
Key to the agreement is a benefit analysis and preliminary assessment that will determine how much a property owners would pay.
The BGI group was tasked with putting together a component of a $1 million loan application through the state Community Economic Revitalization Board.
In doing so, the students assembled work-force demographic statistics for Carlsborg.
Clallam County Economic Development Council, or EDC, Executive Director Linda Rotmark, who supervised the team, said the students provided a “good start” for the loan application.
“The EDC, in its effort to leverage the important public dollars, has 12 interns working on four different projects for six months,” Rotmark told county commissioners Monday.
“And one of those is the Carlsborg project.
“They’ve been working with us this whole quarter.”
Nitrates in drinking water are said to have been linked to cancer and birth defects, Lyon said.
The problem is the “whole reason why the sewer system is seen to be necessary in the first place,” he said. “It’s a known problem, but a lot of people don’t believe it.”
County planners said the groundwater pollution issue is exacerbated by porous soils in the area.
In a related issue, the county commissioners will hold a public hearing today before deciding whether to extend interim zoning for the Carlsborg Urban Growth Area.
The hearing will begin at 10:30 a.m. in Room 160 at the Clallam County Courthouse in Port Angeles, 223 E. Fourth St.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com