On Monday December 14th, 2020 the owners of Environmental Utilities LLC, Jack and Diane Boyer, presented a proposal to install and maintain central sewer on the Island. The attendance was limited In size and the Zoom connection was sketchy at best. As this was a preliminary discussion, the notes prepared were not detailed. So, we have opted to reproduce (with permission) the Q&A posted on the LGIPOA website which is far more in-depth than we could provide. Where possible, we included Ed. Notes wherever our information diverged from theirs. LGI Sewer Project 4 weeks ago Below is the information we discussed with Jack and Diane Boyer, owners of Environmental Utilities (EU). The LGPOA is sending a letter to Charlotte County to ask if it’s an option for them to install and maintain the system. Once we get a response from the county, we will forward it to you. We are also contacting Palm Island to discuss their thoughts on the project. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact your district representative. [Ed. Note: individual emails removed.] November 16, 2020 LGPOA Board invited Jack and Diane Boyer to attend a board meeting to answers questions about the LGI Sewer Project. Following each question is the answer provided by Jack and/or Diane Boyer (Environmental Utilities, LLC). Please note the following disclosure: Until all engineering, permitting, and certifications are complete, no costs can be determined. While some estimates are provided below, they are subject to change. Q & A with Environmental Utilities LLC (Jack and Diane Boyer, owners), PART 1
More information on the Master Plan of Charlotte County can be found at: https://www.charlottecountyfl.gov/core/fileparse.php/523/urlt/charlotte-county-sewer-master-plan.pdf If you’d like to be listed as “interested persons” on the Florida Public Service Commission docket regarding the application for Environmental Utilities to provide wastewater services in Charlotte County send a request to [email protected]. Reference Docket NO. 20200226-SU and include your email. Be sure to request notification of informal meeting notices, FAW notices, all recommendations and final orders issued by the Commission. [Ed. Note: the following update was posted to the LGIPOA website following a special meeting of the LGIPOA Board.] LGI Sewer Project – Update 12.17.20 Last month we sent membership the questions and answers from our meeting with Jack Boyer from Environmental Utilities (EU). If you missed them they are posted on the website at LGPOA.org. Here’s what we’ve learned since then. Early in December we spoke with Jack again via conference call to clarify some information and ask additional questions. In an effort to share the information and discuss options, the minutes of the special board meeting held 12/3/20 are below. 12/03/2020 A special meeting of the board was held to discuss Barb’s letter to Charlotte County regarding Environmental Utilities (EU). In addition to the letter, the number of comments and questions received by board members prompted Richard and Rhonda to speak to Jack to get clarification, the question and answer below is the result of their conversation. Present: Richard Leydon, Rhonda Olson (phone), Paul Holmes, Joe Bokar, Barb Dwyer (phone), Roy Petteway (phone), Laurie Tremblay (phone). Q & A with Environmental Utilities LLC (Jack and Diane Boyer, owners), PART 2
Concerns discussed: The Sewer Master Plan targeted many areas of Charlotte County and when the State Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) took control of water quality issues it kick-started this project focusing on the governor’s recommendations to focus on the West, South, and North sectors. Heat maps are colored coded to show prioritization and how each sector contributes to the problem. Highest population density, age of septic systems and ground water quality were considered. 1. Due to the length and complexity of the Master Plan, it won’t be read and suggested that to take the heat off the LGPOA and the Environmental Utility, LLC (EU), we provide a link to the 376 page County SMP pdf both on our website and the letter that will go out. https://www.charlottecountyfl.gov/departments/utilities/sewer-master-plan.stml 2. Was this project started by Jack when he filed with the Public Service Commission (PSC), or was it mandated somewhere? https://www.charlottecountyfl.gov/departments/utilities/ 3. Do the targeted areas have county or private utilities? The county can finance but EU doesn’t have the capabilities. 4. Think of EU as a franchise when questioning if the utility can be bought or sold. Jack was granted the right to sell if he chooses to and the county has the right to purchase the rights if they choose. Currently there shouldn’t be many assets in EU. Jack previously stated the water company would sell for 12-15 million dollars or more. We would need to purchase both from Jack to make our own utility. Should we consider buying it with the other islands and running the utility ourselves like Boca Grande does? Who would build it, who would run it and what would we save? Or should we encourage the county to do so? [LGIPOA Ed. Note: see correction in “Update 12/17/2020” below] 5. Should we contact another utility company and see if there is interest in the project? 6. The vacuum system cost is @$20,000 per homeowner on the mainland, but Jack is not giving information or facts on what he can do it for. He doesn’t know what grants he can qualify for yet. How can he say he can do it cheaper? The master plan is based on the vacuum system. 7. Will Jack be purchasing easements? Jack has easements for water. If the county comes in, things may change for our island. The fight over easements will delay the process and cost us more. Once we educate ourselves and LGPOA members we should try make sure it happens peacefully and cheaply. A fight will cost more. Education is the key to understanding why this project is in front of us. 8. Paul and Richard will attend the Palm Island Environmental (PIE) meeting on December 14th. 9. Why not have the county go on the record that they can purchase EU at any time? In this letter to the county ask the county if it will be cheaper per resident if they do it. Barb is drafting the letter to the county for board approval. 10. Why is Jack’s engineer being allowed to project costs for the two different systems? Do we need to hire our own engineer? 11. If an email comes into a board member it should be shared with everyone on the board. The response you make needs only four approvals by board members to respond so we can reply to the members as quick as possible. 12. How are the people in your district handling this news? Paul said from personal discussions and Facebook postings it appears the majority of the island providing input is not accepting of the sewer project and many questions were raised. Richard shared that feedback had been positive. Joe spoke to someone who was in favor because his septic needs to be replaced. Rhonda shared most admitted it was long overdue for the environment. Laurie said the biggest worry was the cost. Roy stated everyone he has talked to was against the project and they would pitch in to hire lawyers to fight the project. The rest of the board doesn’t think a lawyer is needed at this time. Since then we’ve spoken to Jennifer Crawford at Public Service Commission (PSC) 850-320-4255, [email protected]. Below are our findings: On January 5th at 9:30am EU has a place on the agenda with PSC. To get his certificate he needs to:
She looked at the docket (20200226) and he does not have his information to request the certificate in yet. He needs his (1) legal descriptions together for addresses of notices and (2) notices sent 30 days prior to January 5th. He has neither done at this time. She said that he can request a rule waiver to separate (bifurcate) the two requirements of PSC for EU (or any business asking for an original certificate). The rule waiver is done separately 30% of the time because the company doesn’t know rates yet. So Jack can ask to separate these two requirements and probably will on the 5th of January. The soonest staff could bring the certificate portion of the application would be at the February 2nd Agenda, but that presumes a number of things: that all deficiencies are corrected, that there are no objections to the notice provided by the utility, and that the staff’s workload allows them to prepare a written recommendation in time to be filed. Below is the link to PSC, search docket number 20200226. http://www.psc.state.fl.us/Conferences/CommissionConference In order for EU to give islanders notice (which is a requirement before he can request the certificate):
She also confirmed that PSC controls EU’s rates. The LGPOA sent a letter to Charlotte County Commissioners Bill Truex and Hector Flores and the Charlotte County Utilities Director on 12/8/20 asking if they would handle the project. To: Charlotte County Commissioner Bill Truex We also spoke to Anastacia Pirrello (850-488-9330) who is our attorney at the Office of Public Counsel (OPC). Here’s the information we learned: Anastacia informed us that an islander asked for help from OPC to review Jack’s financial records. OPC’s accountants obtained and reviewed them. They determined that because it’s a collection system, not including a treatment system, his financials supported the sewer project. Regarding the application for certificate on January 5th, she confirmed that Jack was sent a Deficiency Notice because he doesn’t have the legal descriptions complete, nor has he sent the notice to homeowners. He has until Friday to respond, but there will be no application for the certificate because the letters MUST be in the hands of homeowners 30 days before the hearing and no one has them yet. She thought he would, however, separate (bifurcate) the rates from the application on January 5th. Everything she said confirmed my conversation with Jennifer Crawford (PSC attorney) yesterday. Should there be a bidding process once he receives the certificate? She said yes, of course. Rates are determined based on how much money the system costs. Just because he spends money, doesn’t mean we have to pay for it if it’s crazy. It must be reasonable and prudent. OPC will make sure a reliable contractor is hired and they will oversee the bidding process. When EU’s engineer compares the vacuum system to the low pressure system as promised, she is making sure OPC will hire another (expert) engineer to double check the information. She will let us know when she finds out, but she seemed pretty confident. We asked her if she could contact the county commissioner to find out if this is mandatory (who is saying we have to do this – state, county, or no one?) She will email her findings. We told her we sent an email to the county about their participation in the project. We asked if she knew if the county would do the work and run the utility. She said she didn’t know, but she would also ask the commissioner. She will email her findings. We asked her if she foresees any easement issues with this project? She said she would check on the rules and respond by email. We also asked if we had one year to hook up once the line was going by our house and she confirmed that to be true. We asked about hook up from the point of connection (or the meter) compared to collapsing the tank, installing the grinder pump and hooking up the house? She said that she had only heard of “point of connection”. She said maybe because of the low pressure system it would be different, but she didn’t think so. We believe she’s going to check on this also. She reminded us that we should all contact PSC and get on the list of emails pertaining to this docket. She suggested that each homeowner could send a letter or an email to our government officials listed below. Response from Charlotte County Utility Director dated 12/9/20: CHARLOTTE COUNTY FLORIDA Important Reminders: Link to Charlotte County’s Sewer Master Plan: Charlotte County’s Sewer Master Plan Reference docket number 20200226-SU in any of your correspondence. If you’d like to be listed as “interested persons” on the Florida Public Service Commission docket regarding the application for Environmental Utilities to provide wastewater services in Charlotte County send a request to [email protected]. Reference Docket NO. 20200226-SU and include your email. Be sure to request notification of informal meeting notices, FAW notices, all recommendations and final orders issued by the Commission. You can also email PSC to make your comments known and shared at: [email protected] OPC suggested contacting our senators and house representative regarding your thoughts on this matter: Senator Joe Gruters: (941) 378-6309 Email the Senator Senator Ben Albritton – he is not our Senator, but he lives close by and has spent time on LGI. (863) 534-0073 Email the Senator Representative Michael Grant (941) 613-0914 [email protected] Update 12/17/2020: In the LGI Sewer Project Update sent out and posted on 12/15/20 we misunderstood Jack in the 12/03/20 Special Board Meeting information under Discussion, point #4 and need to clear that up.
Once reading the LGPOA’s information Jack called to correct our statement. He said if we were to form a utility district/not for profit he would guesstimate it could be done for less than 11,000,000, which would combine all water and wastewater. He said we would have considerable savings after bonding and merging the companies because there would be no management operation costs, tax savings and no property taxes, etc. He also said the 11,000,000 bond could be paid for out of existing rates. If the homeowners chose this direction, a committee would need to be formed and financial advisors hired to work out the details. He said everything else looked great. Comments are closed.
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