Libby may repurpose customer credit for infrastructure projects

A monthly credit on Libby water customers’ bills might be replaced as soon as January so the city can raise seed money for much-needed water and sewer infrastructure projects.

The 940 credit — so-called because it amounts to $9.40 a month per customer — was put in place to help offset a rate increase that followed construction of Libby Dam. The credit itself is offset by an annual settlement between the city and International Paper — following the creosote contamination of groundwater from the its mill site — that city officials expect to end in 2019.

In 2017, the settlement netted the city $226,000, according to City Clerk and Treasurer Audray McCollum.

McCollum, at the Dec. 6 meeting of the City Council’s water and sewer committee, proposed replacing the 940 credit with a 3,000-gallon summertime allowance for watering lawns, something she said the city did in the past.

By ceasing the credit to approximately 1,800 customers, the city could realize about $17,000 a month, or $406,000 over the next two years — monies that would be “good to have ... as seed money for matching funds” for grants, said City Administrator Jim Hammons.

“That translates into some pretty good size projects for us, because if we leverage that correctly that’s a couple million-dollar projects,” said committee member Gary Beach.

Hammons and committee chair Brian Zimmerman both noted that using the 940 credit as seed money aligns with the preliminary engineering reports the city is preparing to identify and prioritize improvements to the city’s water and sewer systems.

Because the credit wasn’t part of a resolution or incorporated into the water rate structure, McCollum said nothing would need to be rewritten to remove the credit, though she would need to check with the city’s auditor to see whether the money could be used as proposed.

Beach, Zimmerman and committee member Gary Armstrong all agreed to bring the item before the entire City Council at an upcoming meeting.