The global economic crisis became intensely local on Thursday night as north county sewer officials spent hours debating how and when to bill residents for $140 million.

The answer? Come January, if you live in north Utah County, look for perhaps a 30 percent spike in your sewer bill. Or a jump in property taxes. Or both.

Sewer officials also proposed hiking impact fees for new homes to $4,000, an increase of almost $900 and a move that almost surely will be protested by local builders, already struggling to find buyers. State law could require the issue to be decided within the next two weeks depending on whether a property tax increase is needed.

Months ago, sewer officials -- elected and appointed representatives from each of the north county cities -- had hoped to bill an $82.5 million expansion to new homeowners through impact fees. But with housing starts "in the basement," as one official put it, and the sewer district over capacity in some areas, the expansion project that is already underway must be finished.

The district must secure loans with user fees or property taxes because the promise of impact fees to be collected someday is not enough, district members were told.

Sewer officials watched with grim faces on Thursday as they were presented a lengthy list of projects that need to be started almost immediately. The list, which includes a sewer plant expansion, work to reduce odors and millions to fix badly corroded pipes, totaled $140 million.

Without upgrades, some existing sewer pipes could leak or overload. District staff warned that sewage could back up into homes in Lehi, Alpine and Highland.

Sewage "could come out of the tops of manholes into the streets, or could back into residential homes into basements," said Larry Bowen of the sewer district. "I don't think this is set up so it would flood any basements the way it is, but we need to do this as soon as we can."

District officials argued at length whether residents might howl at being asked to pay for the expansion, whether residents would approve a property tax for the sewer district at the polls, whether the county could authorize the district to tax without going to the ballot or whether the whole increase should be paid through spiked sewage fees and impact fees.

Even if they had the power to allow the district to levy a property tax, County Commissioners -- who ultimately give authority to the district board -- could balk, said Commissioner Larry Ellertson, who was at the meeting.

Based on past votes, the commission would likely say "this service ought to pay for itself" through user fees, Ellertson told sewer officials.

Officials said they may narrow the $140 million list to perhaps $94 million worth of projects that absolutely cannot be delayed for safety and growth reasons, but staffers asked how long the other projects could be ignored.

At one point, David Bunker of Cedar Hills was urging Ellertson to push the County Commission to allow the board to levy a property tax. Ellertson stopped the conversation with five simple words.

"Are you an elected official?" Ellertson said to Bunker. Bunker is a Cedar Hills employee and is not elected.

That was not the only tense exchange during the meeting. Frank Mills, manager of Pleasant Grove, said repeatedly that residents are not going to be happy to discover they are paying for sewer plant expansion.

"Users will come back to us and say 'You are making us pay for new growth,' " he said.

District board member Brian Braithwaite was perhaps a lone voice in saying property taxes should not be used to fund the sewer district.

"Anytime we take away from a citizen's ability to see where the money is used is a mistake," he said, saying fees should be the district's only income.

Sewer officials agreed that they may have a public relations problem in trying to explain fee increases and property taxes to local residents, and argued at length about how much of the $140 million list was necessary because of growth, and how much was ongoing operations and maintenance.

District officials were also asked to decide how much odor should be allowed to emanate from the sewer plant, and how much it might cost long-term to discard of sewage in landfills, or to compost it near Eagle Mountain, paying gas money to haul biosolids to Cedar Valley and haul it back as compost to sell to the public.

The district needs to spend as much as $12 million to build a new composting facility, said Larry Bowen to sewer officials.

"You can't fool around too long because by the time you get [an expanded] sewer plant up and operating, you have to do something with the biosolids," he said. "The expectation [of the public] is that the odor should be nothing, and if we continue to do what we are doing, I think that would not be acceptable."

In addition, if the sewer district does not spend $8 million on a satellite treatment plant in the area of Saratoga Springs and Lehi, they risk losing state permissions that have taken years to secure.

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