In a report to council, the director of assets and operations Ian Macfarlane said it was "unreasonable for our community to continue to pay the highest sewer bill in Australia".

The current residential sewerage charge for financial year 21/22 is $1271 a year. If council were to charge the state median typical residential bill (TRB) of $973 - and it is considering this in its financial modelling, ratepayers could all be a couple of hundred dollars better off.

It's about what comes in and what goes out (in terms of money) especially when considering the Merimbula Ocean Outfall Project (MOOP).

The current estimated cost of the MOOP is $40.5m and would require considerable funding by council.

The revenue from just residential sewerage charges brings in an estimated $15.5m and is one of the levers used when considering getting a loan.

According to a Regional State of the Envirnonment Report in 2008, sewering the villages was implemented between late 2003 and late 2008 at a cost of $72m, half from the NSW Department of Water and Energy, half from council. The sewer fund still carries $15m in debt left over from that program.

"Annual revenue in the sewer fund is $18.5m, but this is due to our high TRB. If we charged the state median TRB our normalised revenue would be $11.8m," Mr Macfarlane said.

"This leads to a debt to normalised revenue ratio of 127 per cent. There is less opportunity to take up loans in the sewer fund since the current debt is above desirable levels."

It's a nice way of saying there's too much debt in the sewer fund to be able to get a loan at an acceptable interest rate.

Which is why council has taken serious interest in proposals from community action group SWAMP (Sustainable Water Actions for Merimbula and Pambula) whose members have campaigned for greater reuse of treated water.

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SWAMP has suggested that more water treatment and greater recycling of water could mean a shorter outfall could be use - and that means significantly lower costs.

In September 2019 the community working group selected a diffuser location at the longest distance and deepest depth. Council resolved in October 2019 to instead adopt a middle distance and depth 'north short' as well as filtration at the treatment plant in order to somewhat control costs as compared to the 'long' option.

This option was selected prior to detailed modelling on the environmental impact, Mr Macfarlane said.

"The EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) has now found less overall impact than expected due to the existing high levels of treatment and favourable currents and receiving environment. There is virtually no impact to the environment found in the vast majority of ocean conditions," he has told council.

"With modelling and environmental assessment work now complete our consultants have advised us that considering the community feedback, council could consider reduced-scope options. These environmentally low-impact options could possibly reduce scope and free up funds for other initiatives, like recycled water and reduced customer bills. Importantly the options may also have virtually no environmental impact and so still achieve the environmental and economic protections we need from this project," he said.

Council believes it could reduce the cost by $14m by having a shorter outfall.

President of SWAMP Marianne Kambouridis said it was great news. The group want to see more storage of treated water, a shorter outfall, greater reuse and additional treatment of water to make it more widely useable.

While Ms Kambouridis believes the lower cost has been a major incentive, she hopes council will continue to explore reuse and recycling opportunities as well.

In light of this, council is expected to be reworking the existing EIS and Ms Kambouridis has arranged to meet with the NSW Department of Planning later this month.

As a consequence council has agreed to "value manage the outfall" with no loans required, and council to reduce the sewerage TRB to $973 by 2028.

"This scenario is an aggressive reduction in outfall scope and/or additional funding support for the Merimbula Outfall and STP (sewage treatment plant) project. This is equivalent to around a $14m reduction in scope or council funding," Mr Macfarlane said.

Something councillors were happy to vote for, unanimously.

A revised option will be brought back to the new council, early in 2022.

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