A sewer-fee settlement agreement between the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians and the Tuolumne City Sanitary District has been released to the public.

The agreement gives the tribe more input on board activities, relieves it of a $2.9 million bill the district once said was due, allows the tribe to put sewer capacity for a yet-to-be-built subdivision toward its Black Oak Casino operations, and provides a $1 million loan enabling the district to pay off debts related to a sewer plant constructed largely to accommodate casino growth.
  

The settlement was reached last fall following negotiations between the tribe and the district, but public copies were only recently provided.

The settlement comes following the district’s contention for several months that the tribe owed $2.9 million for its portion of a new sewer plant. But the tribe refused to pay the bill, saying there was no documentation to justify the charges.
 

In November 2008, the district’s attorney, Pat Greenwell, concluded the tribe had it right all along. He pointed to the district-tribal sewer plant agreement as proof. Indeed, the 2006 agreement, inked before Greenwell’s tenure, only mentions the roughly $4.2 million the tribe has already paid the district.

But district engineer Harold Welborn, who was involved in the original agreement, said tribal representatives had verbally agreed to pay the additional $2.9 million, a figure based on calculations showing the casino was using more sewer capacity than it had paid for. Welborn had been willing to go to court to get the tribe to pay up.

In 2006, Welborn noted, the economy was booming and relations between the tribe in the district were so cozy that no one questioned the need to put things in writing. Also, back then, the district didn’t have a lawyer on staff.

The tribe, meanwhile, simply points to the contract.

But as hard as the recent settlement agreement is for Welborn to swallow, he admits the essentially broke district needs money from somewhere, and it has had a tough time getting money from the private sector.

The $1 million loan from the tribe — specifically, the tribe’s Tuolumne Economic Development Authority — will allow the payment of roughly $700,000 owed to the contractor who built the sewer plant last year. The money, though, isn’t enough to cover the remaining parts of the project, including a multipurpose building and solids-handling facility. Finishing the project will likely involve raising rates, Welborn said.

The settlement agreement is about much more than the loan. It also gives the tribe an ex-officio member on the board who can sit in on closed sessions; requires that a paid third-party conduct the testing of the casino’s wastewater; stipulates that the tribe and district agree on a new billing formula if the tribe needs to purchase more sewer capacity; allows the tribe to put connection fees that were once a part of the tribe’s under-construction Westside subdivision toward casino operations; and prohibits Sewer Plant Manager Danny Tuel from coming onto tribal property “unless there is an emergency that requires his presence.”

Last summer, the tribe had accused Tuel of doctoring sewer samples from the casino to make it look like it was using more sewer capacity than it actually was, and, therefore allowing the tribe to be overcharged.

A parallel testing program by the district — which the settlement also prohibits without notification — appears to have cleared Tuel.

The tribe first considered taking the district to court over the alleged misconduct, but relented when district officials prepared to settle.    

The district is holding a special meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the district headquarters at 18050 Box Factory Road in Tuolumne. Two new board members will be sworn in during that meeting.