UAJA Ratepayers On the Hook

UAJA insurance policy, received from Cory Miller on May 18, in response to RTK request May 15.

KW requested:

  1. Complete, unredacted each entity’s insurance policies, including any and all provisions voiding said policies if the insurer can prove misrepresentation, fraud and/or non-disclosure of risks and/or risk factor reports by the insured entity to the insurer, and/or negligence and/or gross negligence on the part of the insured party during engagement in project siting, design, review, endorsement, approval, permitting, financing, construction, operation and/or maintenance.
  2. Emails, letters, reports, meeting minutes and all other written records relating to legal identification of responsible party and assignment of financial liability for potential public water contamination related to a sewage pump station, sewage transmission pipelines and/or stormwater basins to be located on or adjacent to facilities and/or land owned and controlled by [the public entity] – such records created, transmitted by and/or received by your public entity between Jan. 1, 2015 and the present.

Re: Question 1, Cory Miller, UAJA Executive Director, provided the insurance policy: UAJA Package Policy SEL 12-31-17

Re: Question 2, Miller replied:

“UAJA is always responsible for any environmental impact of any sewer infrastructure that we own.  To my knowledge, there are no records of the type requested, since who is responsible was never in question. ..UAJA will be the owner of all of the sewer mains within the development, and thus assumes all liability for those facilities. That does not include the customer service lines from the main to each building.  Those are owned and maintained by the property owner.  Thus, UAJA has no liability for those customer service lines.”

Gist:

UAJA and its ratepayers will be liable for any and all contamination of SCBWA water wells resulting from a sewage system malfunction, starting at the point where sewage enters the gravity mains on the TB and WRRP site from the small customer lines going to the residential units and the WRRP bathrooms.

TB and WRRP will be responsible for those individual customer lines, but UAJA will be liable for any incidents involving the gravity mains taking sewage to the pump station, for the pump station and wet well themselves, and for the force main taking the sewage up the hill, along Whitehall, to Stonebridge and on to the treatment plant.

More detailed analysis of the policy language: Bailiwick News, May 21, 2018