Bangston: Buy my sewer system, please

A small sewer plant built for a senior housing development in Freeland may be of use to the town’s downtown property owners.

Erl Bangston, developer of the Village at Maple Ridge condominiums who met with the Freeland Water District Monday night, said he believes his system has the capacity to handle more customers.

“We are in the heart of Freeland,” Bangton said.

He said that he had been meeting with the private engineering firm CHS about the possibility of using his system to service the business core in Freeland. The sewer system he installed at Maple Ridge is designed to be expandable.

While Bangston said at the meeting that he is not an engineer and did not claim to know all the details, he said he hoped the Freeland Water District’s board of commissioners would think about purchasing his system.

“It would solve a lot of problems for a lot less money,” he said.

Bangston said he believes his system could handle the sewage from Freeland’s business core for 8 to 10 years, at between 80,000 and 90,000 gallons per day.

Board chairman Rocky Knickerbocker said Bangston’s proposal is worth considering. But he cautioned that in doing so the district must not hurt the chances of a recently completed comprehensive sewer plan from being approved by the state and county.

Gary Hess, an engineer with Island County Public Works, suggested looking at Bangston’s sewer system on a “conceptual level.”

“It’s worthwhile... intriguing, and we owe it to the Freeland community,” he said.

The modualr sewer system currently serves the 41 condos at Maple Ridge and was built to handle additional sewage from a planned 78-unit assisted care unit. Bangston told the water board that he and the other developers of the condos are “upside down for $200,000” because of a loan to Maple Ridge sewer district.

“We have accepted the position we may or may not get paid back,” he said.

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