A retired executive now living on the Cape but not in Chatham who spent years professionally concerned about municipal projects and their costs has sent us two warnings that we thought should be shared with you.

One warning came several weeks ago and one just a day or two ago after state bureaucrats defended their review process of this hugely expensive, wasteful, unnecessary, environmentally damaging centralized sewer project. Excess nitrogen that detracts from the health of Chatham's coastal waters can be removed at far less cost and in an environmentally superior manner by alternative means which are in common use throughout the United States and are preferred by the EPA, national environmental organizations such as Clean Water Action and the Clean Water Fund and the Massachusetts Conservation Law Foundation.

So what is our retired accounting executive warning Chatham taxpayers about? Here are the two messages we referred to:

I have been retired for several years but continue on as a consultant in the preparation of projected capital expenditure projects for government. After graduating from Yale University I accepted a position with one of the "big six" accounting firms in New York City. I spend a great deal of time in the field and can assure you that a project such as the one proposed is without doubt is an impossibility to fund through taxpayer contribution in a town such as the size of Chatham, or anywhere for that matter With five to six thousand property's sharing the potential cost in the billions, it is totally impossible through taxation without bankrupting every property owner. When towns such as Chatham propose to "sell" to taxpayers such a project, the figure they throw out is the START PRICE TAG as I often liked to say. What is meant by that is the price such as Chatham is purporting of $300 million is if the project started today and finished tomorrow. What officials don't want you to know is the projections of costs over years of long term capital expenditure projects. As an example, I followed a project a year ago which was a municipal water system funded in 2007 and the costs alone of piping and concrete had increased 44% in the course of one year as the result of the reconstruction of Iraq and materials were being shipped there and became a premium price here in America. The increases over a project with a duration of 20-25 years will increase several hundred percent, and that may be a conservative estimate in today's economy. The costs associated with material increase's, job order changes, unforeseen job problems, contractual labor costs, weather interruption costs, equipment costs, security and police details, interruption of business and industry, and the enormous costs associated with repaving streets and private property are only a few of the many considerations that go into the overall total project cost estimates. Another area monetarily is the interest on loans and notes which can run in the millions on a project such as this.

I would suggest you study the costs associated with the "Central Artery Project" also known as the "Big Dig." This has increased 1,000 % from 2.3 billion to at last count is projected at 23 billion.

There have been many of these same projects that have ended unfinished as the result of no more funds were available or taxation ran amuck and municipalities folded up the projects. The sad result was huge wasteful taxpayer spending that was literally flushed down the toilet.

It is my opinion that NO MUNICIPALITY today can undertake such a project at the cost of such HUGE TAXATION to support. Frankly, it is an impossibility.

Many of these projects are presented by overzealous, power hungry and in many cases for monetary gain by corrupt officials. Many are unwarranted with absolutely border line justification or no justification at all. Many are unscientifically proven to be needed and many are just pie in the sky outrageous spending of taxpayer money.

I only hope that this information is helpful in advising the taxpayers of Chatham of what exactly they are getting themselves into, and give them insight into the huge taxation required to fund. It also appears that this project has not been justified and alternatives are in the wings.

After the Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs (speaking through Ms. McDevitt) brushed aside CCT’s complaints about the faulty bureaucratic review process, he wrote CCT again:

To the good people of Chatham and its Concerned Taxpayer Group :

Don't abandon your fight to eliminate this wasteful spending and taxation.

The key now is to get the vote out and put your candidates in office, replace the town manager, file a class action suit against the woman whose final approval continued this project and repeal the town's decision at town meeting to stop this total waste of taxpayer money.

Mark your calendar and present tax bills to follow the money and severe increase in your tax bills over the duration of this outrageous unnecessary spending and taxation.

If not successful in putting a stop to this project, it will cost 10 times the cost that was projected by these irresponsible people in power. Hold them personally and financially responsible in the future.

Don't kid yourself, to complete this over the next 20 years the cost your organization projected will also grow from half a billion to between four and five billion. This equates to somewhere close to half a million per property.

Taxes will escalate to an unsustainable amount each year as properties will decline significantly in value and there will be no purchasers as owners will not be capable of selling due to such a huge tax burden. People will then walk away to foreclosure and town coffers will drain to bankruptcy.

Please post and keep this to refer to over the years as chaos will prevail as more and more taxpayers will realize too late to what happened to Chatham in early 2010, when irresponsible people in power started the demise of the beautiful town of Chatham.

Thanks for your concern.

Bob Jxxxx

We should heed his messages.