by Leslie Lytle, Messenget Staff Writer

At the Feb. 24 Sewanee Utility District Board of Commissioners meeting, SUD customer Ron Summers appeared before the board a second time objecting to the grinder pump fees established by the board in November 2024. The $8 monthly fee for customers with grinder pumps offsets the cost of maintaining and replacing the pumps, $40,000 annually according to SUD Manager Ben Beavers. When Summers addressed the board in December of 2024, he lacked written evidence to document his claim that he was told when he paid for the pump and installation, cost $3,000, future maintenance and replacement costs would fall to SUD. At the Feb. 24 meeting, Summers came armed with a letter from SUD customer Marvin Pate supporting his argument that he should not be charged a monthly maintenance fee. Summers also cited former SUD manager Kevin Gilliam as being in full agreement.

When Summers bought his home in early 2000, a septic tank system handled waste. Regulations required Summers to connect to public sewer and to install a grinder pump. Beavers explained that for most of SUD’s 700 sewer customers, gravity flow sufficed to transport waste, but approximately 200 required a grinder pump to move waste to the main line.

Pate read about Summers’ initial complaint to the SUD board in the December 2024 Messenger and wrote to Beavers and the board confirming Summers’ argument that once he paid for the pump and installation, he would have no additional charges. “I support his statements,” Pate wrote, “as they exactly match the understanding that I was given when I was required to install a grinder pump at 692 Hat Rock Road, at the time I built a new house there around the year 2000.”

Pate cited Kevin Gilliam, then the SUD manager, as the person who made him aware of the terms of the arrangement. Summers recently met with Gilliam. Summers said Gilliam concurred with what he and Pate claimed and advised him, “Get the board to have a vote, and you can stop it.”

“We’re not unsympathetic,” said SUD Board President Charlie Smith. “State law says we have to operate at a profit. Either we have to go up on everybody or—.”

“Why don’t you do that?” Summers asked. “This is not my fault. I pay 25 percent extra for having a grinder pump when it was already paid for. If you have a problem with the money the pumps are costing, go up on everybody. I didn’t want that grinder pump. I was forced to get that grinder pump. It’s not fair me paying 25 percent more for my water.”

Summers cited other customers whose recollection of the agreement with SUD at the time of installing the pump matched his. He acknowledged several years ago SUD replaced his disabled pump at no cost to him. Beavers said new pumps cost $1,500-$1,600.

In regular business, new commissioner Amanda Bailey was sworn in to serve a four-year term. The board reelected Smith to serve as president and Clay Yeatman to serve as secretary for 2026.