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PTC being sold down sewer?

By CAL BEVERLY

Consider this an alarm bell for Peachtree City, Senoia, southern Fayette County and eastern Coweta County.

There’s a smell in the air in those areas: a proposed sewer deal between the Water and Sewer Authority of Peachtree City and the city of Senoia.

Senoia, already at capacity for its small sewer system, wants WASA to sell Senoia a half-million gallons of “excess” capacity.

That’s right. Senoia wants to tap onto Peachtree City’s sewer system, and WASA General Manager Larry Turner is encouraging the attachment.

We’ll talk about the rationales and legalities later in this column. First, let’s consider what such a deal might mean for all the residents of the above-mentioned areas.

Way higher density. Lots more people. Lots more traffic.

Where? Flowing onto Rockaway Road and bottlenecking at the Ga. Highway 74 stop sign just above Starr’s Mill school complex.

How many? Senoia has 1,000 undeveloped acres scattered inside its city limits. That’s what the sewer deal would be for.

How many homes, people?

Without sewer, Senoia has been zoning for one house per acre, on septic tanks. With sewer, Senoia has been zoning four houses to the acre in a so-called conservation subdivision.

Do the math: With sewer, those 1,000 undeveloped acres could contain 4,000 as yet unbuilt houses, each with its 2.7 occupants per household.

So, Peachtree City’s WASA, by selling the city sewer capacity to Senoia, would be directly enabling a massive increase in housing and population density on PTC’s southwestern border.

Many of those 8,000-plus new Senoia residents would be driving along two-lane Rockaway Road to get to PTC businesses and Hwy. 74, the route northward toward Atlanta jobs.

Is this a wise thing for PTC’s WASA to do?

Now some talk about reasons why.

WASA’s Turner said this deal so far is purely staff-driven. The WASA board has not discussed it in open session so far. Neither has the City Council, which might have some interest in this development.

An unsigned contract exists: Senoia provided a copy to The Citizen this week. Thus the WASA staff has expended funds and attorney time to get this proposed deal this far. Senoia has been seeking such an accommodation for some time.

Turner says WASA lost a big customer when Photocircuits shut down its PTC operation: 180,000 gallons of sewerage a day or about $400,000 a year. It wants to make up for that lost revenue. Senoia is a willing customer.

Turner says PTC will still have around a half-million gallons per day of unused sewer capacity even after PTC’s projected build-out.

Senoia’s council is set on growth mode, so the members see this deal as a good thing for the East Coweta community.

In the 1997 sales contract between then-Georgia Utilities Co. and PTC, city officials made sure a clause was inserted that prohibited WASA from any extension of the system outside the city limits without city council approval, according to our coverage in the Jan. 31, 1997, edition.

Former Mayor Bob Lenox, who ramrodded the ‘97 sewer deal, said Thursday he also remembered that limiting prohibition.

WASA’s Turner, however, said Thursday, “That’s a matter of opinion” as to how that “extension” is interpreted.

That suggests WASA may not consider this deal an “extension,” since the system already has the capacity.

Also, since the proposed deal requires Senoia to pay for and run the main line from Senoia across Line Creek and all the way to the PTC treatment plant, Turner might be thinking that WASA isn’t expanding or extending anything.

Somebody else is running lines and the treatment capacity is just sitting there, unused.

PTC Councilman Stuart Kourajian, contacted Thursday, said on first glance, the proposed sewer hookup looked like a “good deal,” and he saw it as PTC being a “good neighbor” to Senoia.

Current residents of southern PTC, Starr’s Mill students and parents and others might have a different view.

My view is that such a deal will enable massive new density to develop in an area already suffering from too much traffic.

Should a PTC governmental entity, unelected as the WASA board is, do this to their fellow citizens?

What do you think?