Payette writes off fees on Seneca license
City Council approved new permit Nov. 8
By Brandi Mack
Argus Observer
Thursday, November 15, 2007 11:05 AM PST
PAYETTE — After operating on an expired, indirect discharge permit, the City of Payette waived more than $100,000 in fees for Seneca Foods, Inc.
Seneca has been operating on the permit, which expired in 2002. The permit was originally approved for American Fine Foods Inc., and then transferred to Chiquita Inc., then to Seneca.
“This has been a long negotiation process,” Payette Mayor Doug Henderson said.
Payette City Coordinator Mary Cordova said the permit is basically issued for the use of the city’s water and sewer system. She said it is for the excess loading into the public sewer system.
“They are now paying on the permit,” Cordova said. “They had not been charged any penalties for operating on the expired permit.”
Cordova said the Payette City Council approved the new permit for Seneca Nov. 8, and the permit will be applicable until 2012, or until Seneca should sell the property and another permit is needed.
“This time, the permit will not transfer,” Cordova said. “The new operation will have to come in and get a new permit.”
Cordova said the permit for Seneca has been in negotiations for the last five years. She said money and loading levels were the most negotiated materials.
“Seneca has been doing a very good job reducing the loading levels,” Cordova said.
Cordova said there was a verbal agreement between the city and Seneca to use the old permit while the new one was negotiated. Now that the new permit has been approved, the city has waived the fees and penalties from the old permit.
“After we approved the permit for the new operations, Seneca wrote us a letter asking us to waive the fees and penalties on the old permit,” Cordova said. “So, we did.”
Cordova said the city encourages all industrial plants to pretreat their water and sewer dumpings.
“Seneca has made an effort to pretreat,” Cordova said. “If they made more of an effort, they would save more money.”
Cordova said Seneca is an important part of the city.
“Seneca made a promise, verbally, to Payette that if we waive these fees, they will make more of an effort and invest the $143,000 back into the plant,” Henderson said. “This is just a smart thing to do all the way around.”
Cordova and Henderson agree that Seneca is a vital part of Payette.
Henderson said the load on the wastewater plant would decrease significantly if Seneca invested in more pretreatment before loading.
