A petition is being circulated in Chandler to force a bond election after officials approved a resolution issuing $1.3 million in certifi- cates of obligation to pay for improvements to the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

“I’ve had about 60 people tell me they are going to sign it,” Howard Taliaferro said. “This is not very complicated. I have started getting signatures, and I know (City Hall) is going to rip and rail about it.”

Certificates of obligation are bonds issued without voter approval. The resolution OK’ed during a council meeting on July 13 calls for payment of the certificates “from the levy and collection of ad valorem taxes ... and from a pledge of surplus revenues of the city’s waterworks and sewer system.”

The most critical needs — installing a second clarifier at the plant and repairing a lift station — are expected to cost about $900,000.

Other work related to those projects, and related expenses such as legal and engineering fees, could raise costs by at least another $100,000.

A December 2009 report by Everett Griffith, Jr. & Associates shows improvements and repairs to the city’s water and wastewater systems could cost about $2.7 million over several years.

But city administrator Jim Moffeit has insisted much of that work remains “down the road,” and that only the most pressing needs will be addressed with this $1.3 million in certificates of obligation.

Taliaferro said he attended the July 13 meeting and pleaded with council members to reconsider circumventing voters.

“I got up in a nice way and asked them to please not do this, and they did it anyway. They should go to the people to get this done.”

Taliaferro has 30 days to gather signatures from at least 5 percent of qualified voters in the Chandler city limits and submit his petition to city secretary Shirley Parmer. If successful, the petitioner would force officials to call an election for Nov. 2 — the same day on which the Brownsboro Independent School District is expected to place one or more propositions on the ballot for its bond election.

Chandler officials warned residents that forcing an election could have severe consequences, saying the city cannot wait it out while the treatment plant faces possible “disaster.”

The Everett Griffith, Jr. & Associates report suggests the same.

“This plant has only one clarifier which is a disaster waiting to happen,” the report says. “In the event the clarifier becomes disabled, the treatment process would be affected causing an excursion of the discharge permit paramaters which could result in fines from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

“Also, human health and safety could be in jeopardy and the environment negatively impacted.”

The plant off Noonday Road operates with a clarifier, oxidation ditch, screener, chlorine-contact chamber and drying bed. The city wants to add a second clarifier so that one can continue to run while work is performed on the other.

The single clarifier runs 24 hours a day, making it impossible for workers to perform maintenance on it.

The plant, the city’s second treatment facility, was built in the 1980s. It relies primarily on gravity-force sewer mains to deliver waste. In areas where that is not possible, five lift stations pump waste to the plant.

Once waste water is treated through a four-step process, the clean water is redistributed into Lake Palestine.

The plant is permitted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to treat 500,000 gallons of waste water per day.