The St. Tammany Parish Council voted unanimously Thursday night to sell $40.5 million in utility revenue bonds to buy the Southeast Louisiana Water and Sewerage Company LLC, which would put the parish in the business of water and wastewater treatment.

Currently SELA services 131 subdivisions for water and sewage in the western part of the parish. The parish will pay SELA $36 million as a fair market value. The bonds will be paid back with utility revenues residents pay for water and sewage services at an interest rate of 4.99 percent.

“Revenues will no longer go to private investors,” Parish President Kevin Davis said. “But rather they will be used to acquire the utility on behalf of the citizens of St. Tammany.” The acquisition of SELA is part of a 10-year infrastructure plan started by the parish in 2005. Part of the plan was to get the parish in accordance with stricter state and federal environmental guidelines that went into effect in 2008. However, after Hurricane Katrina, Davis saw that the timetable had to be speeded up.

To see if the parish could handle the services, they set up the Cross Gates Utility System as a pilot program. That system uses utility payments to keep it operating.

Both SELA and Cross Gates Utility System will be under the supervision of the Department of Environmental Services. Greg Gorden, director of Environmental Services said that with the purchase of SELA, the parish will be able to bring wastewater treatment services to parts of the parish that have never had them. He said that this would help the parish to meet guidelines set down by the state Department of Environmental Quality so the parish will be able to reduce the amount of pollutants that get into waterways.

After the parish and SELA finalize the deal in March, the parish will be able to service 11,000 water customers and 9,000 wastewater clients for 2010.

Parish spokesperson Suzanne Parsons Stymiest said the parish plans to expand the system as fund become available. Already there are plans to incorporate the system with the parish’s urban areas. Stymiest said there is an agreement with Mandeville, and Slidell has shown an interest in combing their wastewater treatment system with the parish’s system and has been working on an agreement with the parish.

After the acquisition, Stymiest said that most of the SELA workers will become parish government employees, and the parish will take control of the company’s equipment and materials.

Davis said buying SELA is a win-win situation for parish residents. Not only will the parish have a cleaner and safer infrastructure, but also he said, parish residents get water and sewage service rates, “at the lowest responsible level.”

“This is a major step for St. Tammany’s ecology,” Davis said.