CHANDLER — City offi cials here probably won’t challenge a petition signed by more than 200 voters to force a bond election to finance improvements at Chandler’s wastewater treatment plant, city administrator Jim Moffeit said.

“It appears to be a legal petition. On Thursday, we sent it to our bond attorney to make sure it is legal. If it is, what do you do?”

Chandler will issue $1.3 million in certificates of obligation after adopting an ordinance on Aug. 24 if the required number of signatures are found to be valid. Howard Taliaferro filed the appropriate paperwork at City Hall after asking the Chandler City Council during a meeting in July not to circumvent voters.

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

More than the state-required 5 percent of voters’ signatures were obtained on Taliaferro’s petition. Moffeit said it could ask Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to intervene, but that it is unlikely since the city has advertised its intent to issue the certificates.

“The city is going to do what the law says it’s got to do. But do we go ahead and put a ballot item on for (November), or do we wait until May?”

Taliaferro declined to respond to those comments, except to insist his petition is legal.

If successful, Taliaferro’s petition would force offi- cials to call an election for Nov. 2 at the earliest — the same day on which the Brownsboro Independent School District is expected to place two propositions on the ballot for its bond election.

The most critical needs at the treatment plant — 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.

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

Moffeit repeated that sentiment on Monday.

“I think we’re close to a calamity,” he said. “We could, but I’m not saying we would, go to the attorney general and get this done. It’s not likely he would let us do that now that we’ve posted our intention.

“However, we could sell revenue bonds for $1.3 million. With those 221 (petition) signatures, the council is not likely to do that.”

A December report by Everett Griffith, Jr. & Associates report calls the treatment plant “a disaster waiting to happen.”

“This plant has only one clarifier which is a disaster waiting to happen,” the report says.

“In the event the clarifi er 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.