CROMWELL — Hurry up and wait. The board members of Turkey Creek Regional Sewer District are feeling the strain from this method as they forge ahead with a plan to reduce flow to the town of Syracuse while continuing to wait on answers to questions posed in July.

On Monday evening, Nov. 20, TCRSD heard updates from Umbaugh consultant Jon Julian on the reversal project, communication from Syracuse and other pending items. At the start of the year, TCRSD saw a spike in sewer rates being charged to them by the town of Syracuse, numbers that reflected a nearly 40 percent increase with little or no explanation. As the large sewer project wrapped up around the lakes, the board voted (against President Rex Heil’s suggestion) to spend $53,000 determining how to reduce flow and payment to Syracuse and start processing a portion of that sewage independently.

Currently, the board is working to close out S.W.A.P. while also negotiating easements and talking contract bids for another large project.

During the past few months, board members have expressed frustration with how the town of Syracuse has handled maintenance of its facilities, explanation of its charges and the lack of communication on any of it. A deadline of Aug. 10 was set to meet with answers, yet the date came and went with what the board felt was only delays.

Julian explained to the board his plan to tackle the issue in three steps. He felt the main issues to address were recalculating the TCRSD rate for helping pay for the town of Syracuse’s expense called “professional services;” the possible double-billing of miscellaneous services; and the already completed recalculation of flow rates Julian still does not agree with.

Julian acknowledged TCRSD is responsible for part of the replacement cost incurred by the town of Syracuse. Since Syracuse is using its equipment, facilities and labor to process the flow, TCRSD will be and should be responsible for contributing over time to helping repair and replace those items. Although a best practice in any sewer district is to squirrel that money away month-by-month as it is billed to customers, Julian admitted many of those he has worked with fail to do so until crunch time. He also noted many districts fail to raise rates to customers even when their own costs go up because of a positive balance in the bank, another costly mistake.

In the course of working with Syracuse, Julian again asked the town to provide documents showing cost of improvements made, plans for the water treatment plant. “This is the exact same information they said they would have to us by Aug. 10,” noted board member Robert Dumford. Julian stated Syracuse board members expressed their doubt at being able to produce documents from Triad, the contracted company for town sewer projects. “These issues always get resolved,” said Julian, “it’s just a question of how much you want to spend to get this resolved.”

In other news:

• Syracuse produced a recalculated rate of $2.39/1,000 gallons of flow; TCRSD has been paying them at a rate of $2.02.

• The district is working on an official cross-connection program that helps eliminate ground water contamination through lawns.

• Booster pump that quit working at water plant replaced with new, backup now in stock.

• Board consented to billing MugShots at the calculated EDU based on seating instead of the 1 EDU owners have been paying.

Next meeting to be held is at 7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 18, at the Cromwell location.