Sewage solution for Canyon school?

Hungry Horse News

Most school board meetings are about books and teachers and things going on at our prep-level learning institutions.

But lately School District 6 meetings have been dominated by other matters, like sewers and impact fees.

Monday night was no different as the school board and members of the Hungry Horse Water District continued to discuss options for a possible sewage treatment facility on school lands near Canyon Elementary.

The latest plan under consideration would place the treatment plant north of the school in a generally downwind location.

The plant would service a major new development being proposed by developer Stephan Byrd and his associates as well as the town and school. The school is eyeing the plant not only because it eventually will need septic service, but because it would also like to use the deal as leverage for some sort of impact fee arrangement from the developer.

The concern among board members and Superintendent Michael Nicosia is the development will attract so many students, the school won't be able to handle them. That, in turn, would force the district to expand the school and try to get a mill levy passed by voters.

An impact fee arrangement might mitigate some of that cost - if enrollment ever did go up. The school still has capacity for at least 80 more students.

Byrd is proposing about 1,000 new units for 90 acres of land that was recently purchased in a Forest Service auction.

In order to have that sort of density, the development would have to build a sewage treatment plant. Rather than use their own land for the plant, Byrd approached the school about using a chunk of its land.

Under that deal originally proposed by Byrd, the school would get to hook up for free and would get free sewer service in perpetuity.

But school board member Gail Pauley did some research and discovered its against state law to allow the school free hookup and free service.

Then Bill Kavanagh, who runs the water system for Hungry Horse, suggested the school lease the land for the treatment plant. The cost of the lease could absorb the cost of service and hookup.

The developer wouldn't own the treatment plant once it's completed. The plant would be owned by the Hungry Horse Water District and would be built large enough to accommodate not only the new development, but the existing homes in Hungry Horse as well as school.

The cost of the plant would run about $3 million, said Ian Bailey of TDH Engineering. The water district is looking at the sewer plant as a way to serve its residents without having to build its own plant.

The entire town is currently on septic systems, some of which are failing.

Byrd did not attend the meeting.

The board made no vote one way or another on the matter.