Intergovernmental responsibilities for water supply and sewage disposal in metropolitan areas. Page: 52
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The necessity for securing as much harmony as possible in launching
a metropolitan agency underscores the wisdom of Seattle's politically
wise, if somewhat economically extravagant, approach.
The existence of viable alternatives and the time factor
are two final barriers to metropolitan-wide approaches to water
and sewage problems. Local strategies usually are based on a
maximization of benefits and control and a minimization of cost.
Such strategies, which often can be fulfilled by less than
regional approaches, are not conducive to the creation of metropolitan
agencies which inevitably remove some control from local
hands and rarely offer a lower cost alternative to the minimal
short-range investment a particular community may require to
postpone crisis. Low cost solutions are favored over regional
approaches even in instances where they are impossible or highly
improbable. For example, the suburbs in the Minneapolis-St. Paul
area with the most serious well pollution problems are determined
to develop a small sewage treatment facility to handle the needs
of six communities because of the savings involved as compared
with a metropolitan district or extension of the contract system.
However, these suburbs propose to discharge sewage effluent into
the Mississippi River at a location which would imperil the water
supply of Minneapolis. In 1961 the Minnesota Legislature authorized
the six northern suburbs to create a sanitary district, but required
that the treatment plant could not be constructed without the consent
of the central cities and the State Health Department, all of which
oppose the proposed location.
Alternatives to regional approaches often are quite viable.
Individual community facilities and small subregional water and
sewer districts usually are technically feasible and less costly
on a short term basis than more comprehensive approaches. Even
more attractive alternatives are available, particularly in the
larger metropolitan areas as well as those encompassing more than
one watershed or drainage basin and those with multiple water
sources. These include county-wide water and sewage agencies and
large subregional utility districts, either of which can cover all
or a large percentage of the suburban portion of a metropolitan
area. Quite often these organizational arrangements provide
sufficient scope for economies of scale and long-range planning,
while avoiding many of the central city-suburban antagonisms
which hinder the development of areawide agencies. Of course
these alternatives are likely to be less satisfactory from a
technical or planning viewpoint in medium and small metropolitan
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United States. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Intergovernmental responsibilities for water supply and sewage disposal in metropolitan areas., book, October 1962; Washington, D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1424/m1/64/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.