Rehab of old sewer plant for expansion tabbed at $5.76 million for Fayetteville

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

Fayetteville will eventually be able to double the amount of sewage it can treat with the proposed renovation of its inactive 23-year-old sewage treatment plant.

The Fayetteville City Council picked one of four options to rehabilitate the old plant at its workshop session Thursday night. Two of the options were deemed cost prohibitive with price tags of $8.74 million and $12.3 million and estimated high operation costs. A third option would only provide an additional 1.25 million gallons a day but at a more reasonable price tag of $4.41 million.

But for $5.76 million, the city could gain an extra 2.5 million gallons a day, which should be plenty to cover Fayetteville's future growth, officials said. Council reached a consensus to head in this direction, which gave the city's engineering firm the go-ahead to work on more detailed drawings for the project.

"I think (it) allows us to meet the community's needs through build-out," said Mayor Ken Steele.

The city plans to use revenue bonds to finance the project which will not require a public referendum. Steele said this city's water and sewer program is completely paid for by user fees and not at all subsidized by city tax revenues, so using revenue bonds is appropriate, he said.

"If you use water and if you flush the toilet, you pay the price," Steele said.

City Manager Joe Morton said preliminary indications are that the city's sewer rates won't have to go up for the first five years after the plant comes on line. The last time the city's sewer rates changes was in 1992 when the rates were actually decreased, it was noted.

The city currently charges $1.65 per 1,00 gallons to treat wastewater, said Rick Eastin, Fayetteville's water and sewer director.

The city's sewer service includes a proportional share fee so new structures connecting to the system pay for their share of the future capital improvements, officials said.

Currently, the city's only operating sewage treatment plant can handle up to 2.5 million gallons a day; the expansion council is eyeing would double that amount. The city currently has a permit to discharge up to 3.75 million gallons a day of treated sewage into Whitewater Creek, and officials will need a new permit from the Georgia Environmental Protection Division to treat a higher amount in the future.

The city has averaged 2.04 million gallons a day of treated sewage so far this year, officials said. Being able to treat 5 million gallons a day will meet Fayetteville's projected wastewater needs up to the year 2020, although city officials think they will actually need between 3.65 and 4 million gallons a day by 2013-2014 when the city is expected to reach its build-out stage.

Those figures were developed based on the city's current boundaries without considering any areas outside the city that might be annexed, Morton said.

"I don't see us using much more than 4 million gallons a day," Morton said.

Brennan Jones of Integrated Science and Engineering, the city's engineering consultant, said the expansion will allow the city to take the current plant off line for maintenance purposes, which cannot be done now since there is no other facility to treat the sewage.

"I think it's critical for us to have a facility that's reliable day in and day out," Steele said.

Officials plan for the project to be completed and on-line by August 2005. The expansion project has been on the drawing board for some time, as it was discussed at the past two annual city council retreats.

The Fayette County School System and Fayette Community Hospital are the two largest users of the sewer system in Fayetteville, officials said.