Intercity sewer bill to get day in court

A $4-million dispute over service St. Pete Beach received from St. Petersburg will go to a trial this week.

By AMY WIMMER

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 3, 2001

ST. PETE BEACH -- An eight-year dispute is headed to the courtroom this week, where St. Petersburg will argue that St. Pete Beach owes about $4-million in sewer fees and St. Pete Beach will insist it has been overbilled.

The two cities have been arguing over the sewer debt since 1993, when St. Pete Beach started refusing to pay the entire amount charged by St. Petersburg. The beach city alleged that St. Petersburg, which runs the treatment plant that handles St. Pete Beach's sewage, was not abiding by a 1985 agreement.

Beginning Monday, a judge will hear oral arguments in St. Pete Beach's lawsuit against St. Petersburg. The presentation of the evidence -- including testimony from sewer rate analysts hired by both sides -- is expected to take at least a week.

Both sides have spent the past month maneuvering through a whirlwind of depositions, public records requests and last-minute court filings. St. Pete Beach City Attorney Jim Devito said the records involved in the case include 30,000 documents dating to 1977.

"It's something, really, I've never seen the likes of in 33 years of practicing law," Devito told the City Commission last week.

A decision will end years of speculation in St. Pete Beach over whether city officials were correct in withholding sewer payments from St. Petersburg, which owns the Northwest Treatment Plant on 26th Avenue N, where raw sewage from the beach community goes for collection and treatment.

If the smaller city loses in court, it already has set aside about $4-million in its sewer fund to pay St. Petersburg.

If St. Pete Beach wins part or all of the lawsuit, the money in the sewer fund, raised through higher rates charged to city water users, must be refunded to customers or used on sewer projects.

Treasure Island has a similar sewage handling agreement with St. Petersburg, and it began withholding payments to St. Petersburg about three years ago, when the larger city raised its rates. As of Friday, Treasure Island had withheld from St. Petersburg $581,457 in sewer payments.

If St. Pete Beach is victorious, Treasure Island plans to approach St. Petersburg about reviewing its sewage treatment rates.

"We are watching it very closely and are hopeful," Treasure Island City Manager Chuck Coward said.

Federal regulators shut down St. Pete Beach's sewage treatment plant in the 1970s. The city helped finance St. Petersburg's northwest treatment plant. The two cities signed a contract in 1985, which stipulates that St. Pete Beach will pay St. Petersburg only for the cost of treating the beach city's sewage.

But St. Pete Beach alleges that St. Petersburg has charged the beach city more than its share of the operating, maintenance and expansion costs at the northwest treatment plant. The smaller city began withholding sewer payments in the early 1990s to protest these charges.

St. Pete Beach took St. Petersburg to court in early 1998, after the cities tried for years to settle the dispute outside of court.

St. Petersburg claimed its deal with St. Pete Beach was unfair to other cities that had to pay more for the same service, but Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Frank Quesada ruled two years ago that the 1985 contract is still valid, paving the way for St. Pete Beach to challenge St. Petersburg in court.

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