After a half-century of missed opportunities and six years of planning, Provincetown voters can make a sewer system become a reality with affirmative votes under Special Town Meeting Articles 2 and 3. These two votes will also secure for the Town a 0% loan under the State Revolving Fund (SRF) program. This loan requires our local appropriation be made by June 30, 2001-- for which Article 2 would authorize $16.5-million for wastewater construction-- and final design plans be submitted to DEP by October 15, 2001- to be prepared by a design-build-operate vendor whose 20-year contract is authorized by Article 3.

At last year's town meeting, voters approved $500,000 to complete the final wastewater facilities plan and environmental impact report, including the proposed siting of the treatment building at the Old Burn Dump site. Town officials then told voters that we would only get to build the project if we could obtain the necessary environmental approvals. With the Commonwealth Environmental Affairs Secretary's March 16, 2001 approval of the facilities plan and EIR in hand-- and with the Cape Cod Commission having voted on March 29, 2001 to approve the project as a development of regional impact-- we're back.

The Town of Provincetown has qualified for a 0%-interest SRF loan in the amount of $14,961,000, and has submitted a supplemental request for another $1.5-million. Failure to capture the 0% loan this year will add at least $3-million in borrowing costs over the loan's 20-year life, as the SRF loan program will charge future awards a 2% interest rate.

Based on the results of the bids for the design-build-operate contract for the wastewater project, the total cost of the Town's proposed 500,000-gallon-per-day sewer system has increased from an engineers' estimate of $15-million to $16.5-million-- an increase of $1.5-million or 10%. $600,000 of this cost increase is due to the 22% increase-- from 350 to 430-- in the number of connections for the 500,000 GPD system, based on the Town's survey of property owners in the proposed district. The system will serve over 800 properties. The unit cost for construction has increased from the $30 per gallon-per-day figure (which the Town has been using since 1997) to $33 per gallon per day-- a 10% increase. For a 3-bedroom home, this will mean a betterment assessment of $544.50 per year, rather than $495.00, as previously predicted. The total annual costs for that three-bedroom home are estimated to increase from $775.50-- as previously estimated-- to $876.48 per year.

Approval of STM Article 1 would allow the Town to enter in agreements with low-income elderly homeowners who are eligible for an exemption under clause 41A of G.L. c.59, §5 for deferral of the payment of the sewer betterment assessment. (The deferral for sewer user charges for owners 65 years old and older was approved by Town Meeting last year.)