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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (28047)	3/8/2005 10:21:25 AM
From: shades	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

Ma take a shower - you are stinky! palmbeachpost.com PORT ST. LUCIE — What was envisioned as a short-term building shutdown in St. Lucie West could remain in effect until mid-May after operators of the community's beleaguered water system said Tuesday they don't expect to reclaim control of their plant from the city until May 15. City council members slapped a building moratorium on the community Feb. 22 after shrinking well supplies and lack of treatment capacity left more than 15,000 St. Lucie West customers without water over the long Presidents' Day weekend. Council members agreed the building ban could be lifted after the Florida Department of Environmental Protection decides the utility can operate on its own without the possibility of more breakdowns, and utility officials said Tuesday that reassurance likely won't arrive until May 15. "We need to make sure we have everything in our system working properly and that we have a consistent amount of water," said Charles Sweat, director of the community development district that owns and operates the water and sewer system. "This is the peak of our season. We have solved the problem, but let's not take any chances." Council members said they were unsure whether they will keep the ban in place until mid-May but said at a minimum, they want to be repaid the $141,000 the city has spent to bail out the utility before they lift the ban. Most council members also said they would like a two-way agreement in place before new building permits are issued, ensuring that future shutdowns will trigger an automatic supply of city water to thirsty residents. Attorneys for the two utilities are hammering out details of that document this week. It would allow the St. Lucie West utility to buy emergency water from the city at the "prevailing intergovernmental rate" and would eliminate the payment of capital charges unless the demand was permanent, defined by 11 consecutive months of uninterrupted service or 12 months of demand during any two-year period. Pete Hegener of Core Communities, the master developer of St. Lucie West, said a long-term building ban could hurt commercial projects scheduled to begin construction in the next few months. "There's a series of smaller ones, and one or two major ones that could be affected," Hegener said, noting work is slated to begin soon on BJ's Wholesale Club. "Commercial activity is important to the entire city." Councilwoman Michelle Berger said she expects the city manager to lift the ban administratively once DEP decides the utility can operate without city help, regardless of who is operating the utility at that point. "If they're paying for our services, there's no reason for me to be concerned," Berger said. "I'd rather them make sure their system is perfect before they take it over." During a meeting of the St. Lucie West Services District on Tuesday, directors questioned why the city spent roughly $132,000 building a 1,500-foot interconnect between the two utilities at Cashmere Boulevard and Juliet Avenue when an existing pipe strung beneath the bridge over Florida's Turnpike at St. Lucie West Boulevard ends within 30 feet of the city's system. Councilman Jack Kelly said Tuesday that pipe, built by St. Lucie West Utilities without help from the city, was deemed unusable by the city because the weight of the flowing water would have stressed the bridge and was in the wrong place to mesh with the city's looped water system. "The pressure on (nearby) Bayshore Boulevard runs the opposite way, so this connection wouldn't have worked," Kelly said. Residents asked the five elected supervisors of the development district why they didn't look at building growth in St. Lucie West and project the plant failure. Although some supervisors said the city's planning and zoning department should have certified there was sufficient water capacity before permitting new projects and homes, a Core Communities senior vice president and former operations manager of the development district said supervisors were aware of future customer demand by the amount of prepaid utility fees in their bank account. "When I left at the end of September, they had $3.4 million in prepaid connection fees in the account," Core executive David Page said. "Had we still been managing this situation locally by the people most expert at it, there's no reason to believe we would have had this crisis. We've been successfully husbanding this very, very fragile plant for two years, but we never had that kind of crisis when there was local control." Supervisors removed Page, who was unpaid, as an operations manager in September and replaced its previous management company, Severn-Trent, with Sweat's company, Government Services Group Inc. of Longwood. Faced with the looming water crisis in December, Sweat told directors he asked City Manager Don Cooper for permission to buy 200,000 gallons of water daily from the city at a discounted, bulk rate and was told the city doesn't have bulk rates established. Although Sweat said Cooper offered only to sell the water at retail rates and insisted on imposing costly capital connection fees for emergency water supplies, Cooper denies that claim. The agreement being considered would supply water to St. Lucie West at a bulk rate called an "intergovernmental rate," the same amount St. Lucie County pays for water