By Staff
Update of sewer study would take look at three areas
By MIKE VOSS
Contributing Editor
Washington will spend up to $10,000 to prepare a grant application asking the Rural Center for funding to help pay for an update of a sewer study conducted five years ago.
The allocation was approved by the City Council during its July 14 meeting. Rivers &Associates is preparing the grant application, which will be submitted to N.C. Rural Economic Development Center’s planning grants program. On June 9, the council adopted a resolution authorizing the city to apply for the grant funding.
The need for the update was identified when Washington and Chocowinity officials began discussing Chocowinity’s desire to purchase more capacity in Washington’s wastewater-treatment system.
For several months, the city and town have been discussing wastewater-treatment issues. At a council meeting in April, city officials indicated it could cost Chocowinity about $12 a gallon, if not more, to buy that additional capacity.
During the council’s June 9 meeting, Lewis told the council that Chocowinity officials were over their “sticker shock” regarding the cost per gallon. However, town is looking for the lowest possible cost it can get, he said.
A recently completed study of Chocowinity’s sewer system indicates the town will need to purchase about 146,000 gallons per day additional wastewater-treatment capacity in the city’s wastewater-treatment plant to accommodate several new residential and commercial developments in the near future, including a new industrial park, according to an earlier memorandum sent to Jennette and the council. Chocowinity likely will need to purchase an additional 686,000 gallons per day wastewater-treatment capacity in the city’s wastewater-treatment plant over the next 20 years, according to the memorandum.
City officials have said updating the 2003 study will put the city in a better position of determining what, if anything, the city will be able to do to help Chocowinity. They want to make sure the city has enough capacity remaining at its wastewater-treatment plant to meet the city’s needs during the next several years.
The city has been treating wastewater from Chocowinity since 1988. The city has sold capacity in its wastewater-treatment plant six times from 1988 to 2002. The $981,000 the town paid the city for wastewater-treatment services was used by the city to hold down sewer rates and/or transferred to the general fund to hold down taxes, according to the memorandum.
The city is using from two million gallons to 2.2 million gallons per day of its plant’s 3.65 million gallons per day capacity.
At 80 percent capacity, the city is required to begin engineering studies for the next phase of expanding its wastewater-treatment plant or building a new one. The city can increase its capacity by 950,000 gallons a day by expanding its existing treatment plant.