Waste water woes could cause rate increase for Trenton

TRENTON, Tenn. — Some West Tennesseans should brace themselves for a hefty bump to their monthly expenses. Officials in Trenton have approved a multi-million dollar re-build of their waste water treatment plant and that cost will likely get passed along to residents.

Trenton’s waste water plant is less than 10-years-old but is in dire need of repair and actually has the city in trouble with the state. That is why city officials said they had to ‘bite the bullet’ and build a new facility. But with an $8 million price tag, all the funding many not be there.

“We just started getting violation letters from the state,” Trenton Mayor Ricky Jackson said. “It came to the point where they said you need to fix it or we’re going to come fix it.”

After months of discussions city officials reluctantly approved a plan to build a new facility in the same spot with a multi-million dollar price tag.

“We’re starting the process to design it and get everything done,” Mayor Jackson said. “Then we’ll start to get our funding in place and we’ll go from there.”

Officials said although the facility is plagued by many problems one of the most significant is the fact that it sits right on the edge of a flood plain so heavy rains pose a big problem.

“When the floods and rains come we get out of order and we’ve got to get that fixed,” Mayor Jackson said.

The hefty price tag for that fix has city officials scrambling to find funding. Although grants may help an increase to water rates is expected.

“I don’t want to speculate so I’m not going to go into prices,” Jackson said. “They’ll have to go up, I’m sure. We have to pay for it so it’s going to have to go up.”

Officials said they are going to try and spread out any potential rate increase, but some residents are still concerned.

“Well it’s really a surprise,” resident Adam Fisher said. “I hate to see our water rates go up especially when utilities are already so high.”

To be in full compliance with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation Trenton must have their new facility up and running by 2018.

Officials said water rates have not increased in the city of Trenton for a number of years. They would not go into more detail on how much of an increase residents could see.