Fort Smith officials seek to ease cost of sewer access

Fort Smith city residents who pay a monthly sewer availability fee have the opportunity to have much of that fee reimbursed to them if they ever opt to change from their septic systems and tap into the city’s sewer system.

Any residential building in the city that is now on a septic system pays the city a monthly sewer availability fee that is 75% of what the actual sewer rate would be if they were tapped into the city’s sewer system and charged for their monthly use, said Lance McAvoy, director of utilities for the City of Fort Smith during a presentation on the fee at the Board of Directors study session Tuesday (Jan. 10).

Arkansas law requires every home-owner to tap into a public sanitary sewer line if there is one within 300 feet of the home that is accessible without crossing private property.

“In Fort Smith, because of the age of the city, there are places where the septic system for a structure existed well before the sanitary sewer. That was the purpose of the sewer availability fee – to help incentivize and capture that,” McAvoy said.

The original Fort Smith Sewer Availability Charge/Fee was enacted by the Fort Smith Board Directors in 1972. In 1994, the ordinance was twice amended. The second amendment repealed the first amendment but made provisions so property owners can recoup the fees they have paid if they tap into the city’s sewer system.

Every city in the state has a tapping fee, said City Administrator Carl Geffken, and Fort Smith is no exception. The city’s tap fees are $1,100 if the customer does not have to cross a road to tap their private lines into the city’s and $1,800, plus square-footage fees for patching asphalt or concrete, if they do have to cross the road.

Fort Smith has 119 customers who are within the limits imposed by the state law but use septic systems rather than the city’s sewer system. Those customers were grandfathered in when the state law was enacted, McAvoy said.

However, if one of those septic systems were to fail, the state would not issue a permit for a new septic system. The customer would then be required to tap into the city’s sewer lines. If that customer had been paying the sewer availability fee for long enough, though, they could avoid the tap fee. The city would calculate the total charges the customer has paid and credit that amount toward the tap fee. If the customer had been paying the fee for enough time and had a credit amount even after the tap fee had been taken out, the customer could ask for that money to be refunded.

“(That) would help offset, potentially, some of the cost of the private service line. It would be after the fact that they get the money, so they would be out the money up front,” McAvoy said.

For an account holder to disconnect from septic system to sanitary sewer, the owner would need to hire someone to clean and close the septic system, run a new private service line to the right of way, notify the water utilities to request the previously paid sewer availability fee be credited against the connect fee, and schedule the water utilities to make the final connection to the sanitary sewer. Customers then would be charged regular sewer rates and would no longer be charged the sewer availability fee, McAvoy said.

Director Lavon Morton said he had asked for the discussion on the fees when he was approached by a customer who is paying the monthly fee.

“Basically, when they tap into the city’s sewer lines, they get back what they have paid, and you can’t be more fair than that,” Morton said. “This removes any area of concern for me.”