West View residents have begun to pay sewer charges that have raised their rates about 66 percent.

The new charges result primarily from the borough's need to borrow $7.2 million to cover its share of construction costs, plus interest, for two large sewage retention tanks.

Who should pay for the tanks was the subject of a 10-year legal dispute between the borough and the Girty's Run Joint Sewer Authority. The battle ended in September when the state Supreme Court declined to review lower court rulings that West View was responsible for a quarter of the project costs.

West View's sewage is transported through the Girty's Run line to the Alcosan treatment plant along the Ohio River.

An average West View family, using about 15,000 gallons of water every three months, will see their quarterly sewage bill rise to $115 from $69. The amount of sewage generated by a home is based on the amount of water used.

The executive director of West View's Municipal Authority said he wanted to make two points about the increase in sewer rates:

None of the authority's 200,000 water customers faces a rate hike. "The waste water department is a separate entity," Dan Daugherty said.

All money raised from higher sewer rates will go toward paying the borough's share of costs for the retention tanks.

"We will continue to operate our system for 81 cents [per thousand gallons]," Mr. Daugherty said. "The rest is to pay off the bond issue."

Sewer bills in West View reflect charges from both the borough's waste water department and from Alcosan. The new rates, which went into effect in January, also reflect smaller increases imposed by Alcosan for waste water treatment.

The local portion of the bill includes a fixed customer service charge of $22.04 per quarter, plus a variable charge of $2.82 per 1,000 gallons of sewage. Those rates have risen from $9.93 per quarter and 81 cents per 1,000 gallons.

The Alcosan treatment charges are $6.27 per quarter and $2.98 per 1,000 gallons, up from $5.78 per quarter and $2.75 per 1,000 gallons.

The two tanks, built in Ross and Shaler, temporarily hold a mixture of storm water and raw sewage during periods of heavy rain. The stored liquid is released into the 30-inch transmission line at a slower rate that doesn't overwhelm the Alcosan plant, pollute streams or back up into customers' homes.

Those retention tanks expand the carrying capacity of the Girty's Run trunk line from 12 million to 20 million gallons of waste water a day.

While West View had agreed many years ago to pay 25 percent of the maintenance costs for the trunk line, officials said the small borough no longer produced anywhere near 25 percent of the material flowing through the pipe.

Allegheny County and Commonwealth courts, however, rejected the argument that the borough's waste water department should not have to pay one-quarter of the upgrade cost.

The borough had spent about $1.5 million since 1999 to tighten up its own system, Mr. Daugherty said. Budget plans call for the waste water department to continue making about $100,000 in repairs each year.

In addition to his job as head of the borough authority, he also serves as president of West View Council.

Other communities served by the Girty's Run trunk line should have been doing the same kinds of repairs instead of installing the very expensive retention tanks, Mr. Daugherty said.

Ross, Shaler, Reserve and Millvale all send their sewage to Alcosan via the Girty's Run line.

Management of Girty's Run was taken over temporarily by the much larger McCandless Township Sanitary Authority in September.

McCandless authority Executive Director William Youngblood said his agency stepped in when Girty's Run lost its manager. McCandless will oversee the smaller agency for no more than 24 months.

West View's debt and interest doubled during the 10 years of litigation, Mr. Youngblood said. "It's too bad that West View took a hard-nosed stand," he said.

While West View's population no longer represents 25 percent of the area served by Girty's Run, the community produces more sewage per household than places like Ross and Shaler, he said. Much of West View is served by a combined system that carries a mix of storm water and waste water, he said.

Like West View, Girty's Run has spent as much as a $1 million in recent years fixing broken pipes and tightening up other parts of its system, he said.

While West View's new sewage rate is likely to shock many customers, it is not near the highest in the Northern suburbs, according to John Schombert, executive director of Three Rivers Wet Weather. His regional agency advises municipalities on ways to reduce water pollution.

The municipal portion of West View's new quarterly rate is about $64. That number puts West View's charge in line with the $64 paid by Franklin Park residents in the Lowries Run drainage district and well below the $100 paid by homeowners in Franklin Park's Bear Run area.