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wastewater begins after the pipeline’s disposal process is
complete. Disposal of wastewater is petitioner’s only purpose
for constructing the pipeline. We cannot agree that Company’s
use of what respondent terms “Wastewater”, and suggests is waste,
involves a use of the financed pipeline when petitioner’s sole
purpose for constructing the pipeline was to dispose of the
wastewater. Company simply provides petitioner with a place in
which to dispose of a certain amount of wastewater in an
environmentally acceptable manner and, in turn, gets rights to
that wastewater. In the circumstances of this case, Company’s
role in the disposal of the wastewater does not translate into a
use of the sewage facilities.
Petitioner contends that, regardless of whether Company’s
use of the wastewater can be construed semantically as some use
of the pipeline, any such use of the pipeline is not a private
business use because taking the wastewater from the pipeline is
incidental to the governmental sewage treatment and disposal
purpose of that facility.17 Petitioner relies upon the following
17Petitioner claims that from its perspective, “it is
irrelevant who takes the Treated Water and what they do with it
so long as the Treated Water is used in an environmentally sound
manner in accordance with applicable law and relevant public
policy.” Petitioner adds that if it could accomplish its
governmental purpose of sewage treatment and disposal by simply
emptying the wastewater into a lake or pit at the top of the
mountain, the cost of the pipeline would be the same and the
sewage ratepayers would still be paying increased rates for the
disposal of the wastewater.
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