Everybody was smiling Tuesday night in the moments before the City Council opened its final regular session for February.

The council and Beeville Water Supply District board members were celebrating the final payment on $10 million in bonds sold in 1982 to finance the construction of the city’s surface water system.

Propped up against one wall of the City Council chamber was a giant check for $1,005,931.25 that City Manager Tom Ginter had prepared for the event.

The check was dated March 1, 2010, and signed by BWSD Board President Jim Crumrine and Mayor Jimmy Martinez Jr.

The event was a long time coming. When the district initially sold the bonds, the directors decided to try to pay off the debt without using their district’s power to tax property owners.

That lasted only a few years. The revenues from higher water rates simply could not generate enough money to keep up with the annual debt service payments.

Ginter said the tax rate charged by the district was 17 percent this year and the levy came to a little more than $550,000.

But Ginter said the tax rate will definitely decline now that the bonds are paid.

He said it is too early to know how much of a savings taxpayers will see. The current water district board has realized a need to create a maintenance fund to finance improvements, repairs and expansions of the current system.

When the BWSD was first created by legislation in Austin, the government authorized the sale of $13 million in bonds. But the city ended up spending only $10 million of that.

That means the district may sell as much as $3 million more to create its maintenance and operation fund.

At a recent BWSD meeting, Jim Urban of Urban Engineering said the district might want to expand its system, upgrade its equipment with newer technology or replace deteriorating storage tanks, pumps, filtering systems and raw water intake equipment.

Those decisions will have to be made in the months ahead as BWSD board members and the City Council study their options.

The good news is that the raw water intake structure, the pipeline from the Nueces River to the George P. Morrill Treatment Plant, the Clareville pump station and the 18-mile pipeline to Beeville are now the property of the city, free and clear.