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_.. ti <br />.. • _ _. <br />Public Works <br />City of Eugene <br />July 1, 1997 ~ 858 Pearl-Street. <br />Eugene, Oregon 97401 <br />Tracy Ilene Miller (541 j 682-6826 Fax <br />29249 Willow Creek Road <br />Eugene, Oregon 97402 <br />Re: Proposed Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission (MWMC) System <br />..Development Charge <br />Dear Ms. Miller, <br />I am following up on your June 26th letter to the City Manager and Council on the City's <br />adoption of the proposed MWMC System Development Charge. You refer to the reduction in <br />the residential SDC rates, and request a justification of why full costs are not being recovered:. <br />'~= Tlie' proposed SDC, which was developed through the work of a citizen's advisory committee <br />composed of a cross section of people from Eugene and Springfield, recommended a radically <br />different way of structuring the MWMC SDC from the one currently in place. The basic goal of <br />` the proposed SDC is to recover not only the costs of existing plant capacity, but. also the cost of <br />new capital investment required to expand the capacity of the regional sy"stem. (As you may <br />:now, the current MWMC SDC is only a reimbursement fee, and does not include the future <br />costs of system expansion.). Overall, the proposed SDC is designed to recover more of the public <br />costs of system capacity than the currently adopted SDC. <br />At the same time; the Committee recommended that the rate structure be based on both the <br />amount of wastewater produced by new development, and on the strength of the wastewater <br />discharged by that development. This, again, is a much different approach than the current <br />methodology based only on the number of "plumbing fixture units" in a new development as a <br />measure of potential wastewater usage. Approximately 35% of the total capital investment in <br />regional facilities is related to the strength of wastewater, rather than the amount of wastewater <br />being discharged. <br />A result of allocating, over :one-third of the capital costs of the regional facilities ~o new <br />development based on the strength of discharge is that costs were shifted to those developments <br />with higher strength discharges. This more accurately reflects the use of those portions of plant <br />.capacity related to the handling of suspended solids and biochemical oxygen demand (or "SS" <br />and "BOD"), and allows a better match between those creating the impact and the charges they <br />pay. _ However, the shift in costs. between types of development was high enough to result in an <br />actual dollar reduction in the rates that would be charged to residential uses. <br />