NORTH WEBSTER – Lakeland Regional Sewer District board approved a rate ordinance change Thursday allowing them to waive late fees, then voted to waive those fees for July. July was the first bill district customers received, which for the construction period was set at $11.20 monthly. About 10 percent of bills remain uncollected, according to Jennifer Ransbottom, a project manager with billing agency Jones Petrie Rafinski, which is an improvement from one-third going unpaid as of last month. She said she expects the payment rate to be better for the next bill. The district also has received more recent information from the county on properties within the district, a total of about 600 changes including 90 properties that changed hands since 2011. Also Thursday, the board voted to submit four contractor pay applications to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for approval, as well as a $66,000 bill from engineering firm DLZ Corp. The pay application from R.E. Crosby Inc., which is building the wastewater treatment plant, was approved at $320,340; two applications from Selge Construction for sections of the collection system, at $386,319 and $380,661; and an application from Advanced Reconstruction Technology for the third section of the collection system, at $241,537. Much of the work has involved installing force main pipes and staking the locations of grinder pumps in front of homes. Casey Erwin, with DLZ, told the board that installation of the pumps will start on the north side of the district in late September or early October. He noted that they can give a general area and timeframe for where and when grinders will be installed, but more specifics are hard to give. “We probably won’t even be able to tell them within a week,” board President Jim Haney added. Erwin said they could publish a schedule of planned work by area on the district’s website (lakelandrsd.com), but with the caveat that it’s subject to change. In other business Thursday, the board approved a contract with Astbury Water Technology Inc. to operate the wastewater treatment plant, and discussed setting standards by the end of the year for the contractors that customers will eventually have to hire for work such as connecting pipes and power to the grinders and shutting down old septic systems. Erwin suggested holding training sessions on the particulars of the work for contractors and giving users a list of which ones went through training.
