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Last week I almost fell out of my chair when I opened a stack of documents I had received under the Freedom of Information Act from Blacksburg's town attorney. The startling item was a 90-page agreement between the town and Anderson and Associates for engineering services to construct a Toms Creek Basin gravity sewer. It was signed by Town Manager Gary Huff on May 21, 1999, just 10 days after the town council had directed its staff to study other sewer options.

This latest revelation has come as a shock to even long-time opponents of the gravity sewer plan. While creating the public impression that sewer options were being objectively reviewed, town staff, behind closed doors, had predetermined its sewer decision in 1999. Also, since June 2003, the staff claimed that the engineering budget for the gravity sewer plan was $100,000. But the actual budget agreed upon by the staff for engineering work associated with construction of this sewer was $437,850, which is minimal for this type of project.

The amazing story begins with the council's compromise sewer vote of May 11, 1999. The council voted that day to award a $545,539 contract to Anderson and Associates to design phase I of the 30-year-old gravity sewer plan. At the same time, the council also voted to direct its staff to study more current sewer technology options.

Only 10 days after the council's vote, the town manager signed a million-dollar agreement with Anderson and Associates for engineering services to design and construct phase I of the gravity sewer. By its language, stating that the town "intends to construct a [gravity] sewer," this agreement defied the council's direction to study modern sewer alternatives.

Specifically, this 90-page agreement budgeted $545,539 in fees for phase I design, as council had approved, plus an additional $437,850 for engineering work associated with construction. The second figure was broken down into 87 line items detailing specific engineering tasks, some of which Anderson has already begun (see www.tcbsewer.org).

Yet in May 2003, when the town staff renewed its request for a sewer decision, surprisingly missing from its budget for the gravity sewer plan was any money for engineering. When residents caught this omission, staff increased the engineering budget to $100,000 for "supplemental construction inspection." The staff stated this budget of $100,000 for engineering in the town's submission to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality on Feb. 18, 2004, even after this unusually low figure prompted a DEQ reviewer to request "a rationale for the budgeted construction inspection cost [of $100,000]."

It took several public questions at the March 9 funding hearing plus follow-up e-mails and phone calls to finally receive this 90-page agreement with the actual $437,850 engineering budget for sewer construction. This figure is particularly relevant now, with construction bids and actual engineering and easement costs for phase l totaling more than the $7.6 million funding allowance.

While staff underestimated the engineering costs of the gravity sewer option, it grossly inflated the operation and maintenance costs of the competing sewer option. On July 15, 2003, town engineer Meredith Tremel detailed and mapped to the town council a plan for a U.S. 460 Bypass force main plus STEP sewers for the Toms Creek Basin. STEP sewer technology, already used in Blacksburg's public sewer system, has been successfully serving communities nationwide for two decades, including some of the fastest-growing cities in the nation. Tremel told the council that this combined bypass-plus-STEP sewer option would provide the same sewer service as the gravity sewer plan, and estimated its total cost at $6.9 million.

But $6.9 million was much less than $11.5 million, staff's understated estimate for its gravity sewer plan, phases I and II. So staff found a way around this problem with creative accounting.

Staff estimated the operation and maintenance costs for the bypass-plus-STEP sewer option over 50 years. Then, using an invalid calculation method, it claimed that the cumulative 50-year O&M cost was 167 percent of capital cost. According to the standard accounting calculation (net present value), this 50-year O&M cost was actually 29 percent of capital cost. By thus multiplying the O&M figure for the bypass plus STEP option by 5.7 times, the staff was able to claim that its favored option cost less.

Blacksburg should not select an outmoded, environmentally destructive sewer option based on concealed and manipulated costs when a better and less expensive sewer option is available. When sewer proponents on the town staff and council resort to bypassing the town's charter and massively rewriting its comprehensive plan to advance a sewer project that has never been credibly justified, it's time to take stock of what the town has come to.

As former council member Michael Chandler recently observed, "The issue before Blacksburg is not one of growth versus no growth or developers versus tree huggers, but of accountability in government. The May election has become a referendum on whether Blacksburg will choose to govern itself in a forthright, objective and competent manner or in a haphazard and biased fashion."

Let's vote for responsible government in the town council election May 4.

Scheim lives in the Toms Creek Basin and a member of Blacksburg's sewer options working group.