This article is to clarify the Richland County Commissioners position in regards to the Dry-Redwater Regional Water Authority (DRWA). The decision we made was to table this project at this time, not to reject it. We have several questions that need to be answered before we go ahead with this project.
The DRWA presented a funding request to the Commissioners in the amount of $450,000 to be used for the preparation of a formal Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between DRWA and the City of Sidney to provide water to the DRWA; that the funds will be utilized to complete the design, pipeline routing, environmental clearances permitting and easement descriptions for the water line from Sidney to Lambert area; prepare an estimate of construction cost to complete this phase of the project and submit it to the Richland County Commissioners. The Commissioners at that time can decide to fund any, all or none of the proposed construction.
At that time the projected estimate to complete the project in Richland County was approximately $31 million to be phased in over a six-year period. Not all of Richland County would have had access to this water project at the $31 million investment. It would have been interesting to see a projected cost to serve the entire county, but $450,000 is a huge investment if we were to go no further with the project. The total estimated cost of this project in the four-county areas is approximately $120 million. That is at today’s cost, but with the estimated completion date in 2026, the costs will be considerably higher in our opinion. This does not complete the project for the entire county, only about 50-60%. This creates an issue of not all residents of Richland County getting a benefit they think they will be receiving. Everyone should be checking the proposed mapped areas to help make an informed decision.
The project would begin in Sidney, using water from Sidney’s water treatment facility and build out towards Lambert, Savage and Fairview and out into the rural areas as funding allowed. The DRWA would continue to pursue funding to complete the entire project, including any portions of Richland County that could not be funded through oil revenues.
This is where the commissioners have started to question the feasibility of our commitment to this project. We, as commissioners, need some guarantees that the Federal Government and the State of Montana will indeed have available resources to fund this project to completion. The State of Montana DOES NOT seem to be interested in helping Richland County or Eastern Montana develop any of our resources, as was demonstrated by Governor Schweitzer’s line item veto of the Richland County Soil Conservation’s request for funding. The legislature only seems to be interested in taking away our revenues and shifting them west. We need some guarantees from the State of Montana before we commit to this amount of funding for the DRWA project. Especially a guarantee they will leave our existing oil revenues intact. Next comes the commitment from the Federal Government, We are not getting positive feedback from Senator Baucus, Senator Tester or Representative Rehberg. Any guarantees for funding approval for a new water project, no matter how needed, in their opinion, will be very hard to get. Total funding of this project with our existing political climate and existing national debt will be a daunting task to say the least. The money just isn’t there to start a new project and it will be very difficult to find to fund and finish already approved and started projects. The projects already started will be a priority.
Over the last six years, we have been working with our Richland County Public Works Director Russ Huotari, to create a long range capitol improvement plan for Richland County. We have been projecting revenues and fitting in our needs for oil revenues to back-fill the county’s budgets, complete our building project, continue our road improvement projects, maintain reserves and set money aside for any unanticipated problems that may arise.
We only have one building project on going now which is the courthouse remodel. The money needed to back fill our budgets is a priority to maintain our county’s tax levy and reserves at the existing level (NO TAX INCREASE). At this time, if we were to commit the necessary funds to complete this water project in Richland County, the first part of our Capitol Improvement Plan that would be impacted would be our road projects.
This is what we have used to base our decision to not fund the DRWA project at this time. The DRWA project does address a very important need in our region and is one we will continue to support as it was initially designed. If we begin to see some commitment from the State of Montana and the Federal Government, it would have a huge influence on our action to reconsider our decision.
There are other areas of this county that are also hinting at needing revenue assistance for the county funds, such as infrastructure needs for sewer lines, sewer lagoons and water main upgrades and new installations in Sidney and Savage. Also, there is the possibility that Sidney may need the water targeted for this project for their own growth through the sale of water to the oil industry, new housing subdivisions and hotel complexes being added. These possibilities have all presented themselves since the discussion and commitment from the City of Sidney was made to this project.
Our decision was based on prioritizing our needs and our priority has become the roads of Richland County. Even though we objected, we watched as the last Legislative Session took oil revenues away from our school districts to put into the General Fund to re-distribute around the state. We are well aware that in the next session or sessions our county’s oil revenues could be the next easy target. As we stated before, until we get some hard guarantees from the State of Montana that our revenues will remain intact, WE need to work on OUR road system to get as many miles in the best possible condition in case the Legislature decides to reduce our share of funding. Our roads are a very important part of our infrastructure and their maintenance and improvement are necessary for the growth of our region.
We as commissioners have not made this decision without careful consideration of as many variables as possible. Again, we have tabled this project not rejected it. When we feel like our questions and concerns have been addressed by the State of Montana and the Federal Government, we will reconsider our decision.
If you have any questions about this project or the commissioners’ decision to wait for the project to proceed as originally proposed, call any one of us, and we will try to give you answers. Thank you.
Signed
Don Steppler, Loren Young, Shane Gorder
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