Accepting Waste from County will Drive Rehoboth Deeper into Debt

Do you ever wonder what happens when you flush your toilet? Where did last nights Chinese takeout actually go? Yes, Nemo, in this case it really does all lead to the ocean. In June of 2018 Rehoboth Beach began pumping treated human sewage into the ocean off of Henlopen Avenue. This project has been under debate and discussion since 1998. We’ve had years to think this plan through and develop the best solution, but clearly we fell short. The city of Rehoboth is facing a $45 million bill for the construction of the Ocean Outfall pipeline plus $18 million for future improvements.
Due to this, residents are facing raised sewer rates that could total up to $1,100 per year compared to the usual $600. The proposed solution is to accept waste from the entire county and send it through the pipeline into the ocean. If we do this Sussex county will bail us out of our debt. But, how can we trust that the county will manage the treatment plant with integrity? Why should the county be running things in our backyard? Ocean outfall is already a highly controversial and sensitive protocol. This local problem needs local management.
But there are larger issues with this solution that we must face, aside from management. What happens when the waste becomes too much and we have to deal with the repercussions? Accepting waste from the entire county exasperates the problems of ocean outfall and only draws its consequences near. When there is so much sewage in the ocean that fisherman struggle to meet their quotas and seafood prices at local restaurants skyrocket, how will Rehoboth’s already debt-ridden economy survive? When the ocean becomes unhealthy just like the bay did, it is likely that we will be mandated to shut down the outfall pipeline. Don’t believe this will happen? It already has.
In South Florida, Miami-Dade County has been using ocean outfall since the 1970’s to dispose of their waste, and residents have seen intensely detrimental effects from the long-standing outfall. In 2008 due to environmentalist outrage the state passed a law to end the use of the pipes by 2025. Miami-Dade estimates that it will cost about $5.7 billion to comply with this legislation. Soon after years of polluting the ocean, ocean outfall will be banned in Rehoboth, but we will not have the money to invest in a alternative disposable procedure or fund the removal of the pipeline to comply with a ban.
The city took out a long term loan on a project that is not a long term solution. When the ocean becomes compromised and we are forced to pursue another solution for our waste we will no longer have the means to do so and the the city will sink deeper into debt.
A long term solution would have been a better investment for the city. Alternative means of waste disposal such as spray irrigation, treating the wastewater and watering farmland with it, wouldn’t have lead us into more debt like ocean outfall will. City officials may argue that spray irrigation was more expensive than ocean outfall, but Tidewater and Artesian, both private utilities, proposed spray irrigation plans that were cheaper than the ocean outfall plan. Additionally, spray irrigation would enable us to safely accept waste from the county to bail us out of debt without economic or environmental repercussions.
Also, even if it were more expensive there is no way the original price of spray irrigation would have compared to the debt that we are in now plus the debt we will be in once we are forced to abandon the outfall and pursue a new method. The more waste we pump through the pipe the faster we pollute the oceans and the faster we will be banned from using this method of waste disposal. When this happens we will have no other choice but to construct alternative means of waste disposal that don’t pollute our oceans driving us deeper into debt. But it isn’t too late to do the right thing.
A town hall meeting is being held on January 5th, 2019 at 10 a.m. in the Commissioners Room on the second floor of City Hall to discuss handing over Rehoboth’s wastewater facility to the county. You can also watch the meeting online at 10 am by clicking here.
This is our chance as a community to come together and decide what we value. Do we choose to risk the health of the ocean, our most valuable asset and sink deeper into debt? Our decisions as a town are beginning to form a pattern. So far, they show that we value short term solutions that rely on the ocean to swallow up our problems. First, we had too much waste and it was polluting the bay, so we pumped it into the ocean. Then, when pumping it into the ocean became too expensive we thought to pump more sewage into the ocean.

We can’t keep putting stress on the thing we depend on most. Let's think about the possibility of making sacrifices to invest in our own future. The decisions we make as a community are a direct expressions of our values and only we have the power to determine them.