Wednesday, September 20, 2000

By DAVE HAMRICK
dhamrick@TheCitizenNews.com

The idea that north Fayette residents should get priority in receiving county water service seems to be the prevailing opinion as the Fayette Water Committee considers its long-term goal of providing water service to all of the unincorporated county.

In a recent discussion, Water Committee members considered a new written policy, proposed by the county Board of Commissioners, that puts the north end first.

Committee members also discussed whether they should slow the effort to extend new water lines and use that money to replace some of the existing lines, to improve fire safety.

But they seemed content to continue the emphasis on new lines.
Filling in the gaps in north Fayette is "a $2 million project for roughly 20 miles of pipe," said Tony Parrott, water system director.

But filling in the gaps in north Fayette makes sense for three reasons, according to the proposed policy:

"1. It directs development to the area of the county where the most infrastructure, in the way of existing water lines and paved roads, already occurs;
"2. It eliminates duplication of fire service needs. The area is currently served by both tanker service and engine service. As development occurs on county water, the need for tanker service will end; those tankers can then be moved to the south end of the county;
"3. It provides for a large percentage of the county's new and existing development to have access to potable water and fire protection services with a low ISO insurance rating, thereby saving citizens insurance premium dollars."
When an area must be served by tanker trucks, it takes seven firefighters to operate one truck as opposed to two per truck in areas where fire hydrants supply the water, said Parrott. When hydrants are available in all of the north end, fewer firefighters will be needed to provide better service at less cost, and homeowners will have better insurance rates in the bargain, he said.

And in the more sparsely populated south end, many areas don't have fire hydrants available, so more tanker trucks are needed there. Finishing off the north end will allow those trucks to be moved to areas where they are needed more.

As for replacing existing lines, he said, there's not enough need to justify the change in policy right now. "Out of roughly 3,000 hydrants in the county, we had about 240 at one time that didn't meet the standards that we had set," he said.
But because of recent completion of a loop water line that links all major areas of the county, "some of those [problems] have gone away," he said.

The proposed policy lists all the county roads and streets that currently don't have water available, with a color code for which areas get first priority. Those north of Ga. Highway 54 would be slated for construction in 2001 through 2003, and those south of 54 would get attention from 2003 to 2010.

Committee members will review the proposed policy and discuss it again Sept. 27.

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