Council weighs options to serve future big developments

By JOHN THOMPSON
Staff Writer

With two major development projects looming on the horizon, the town of Tyrone is seriously considering getting into the sewerage business.

During last week's town council meeting, Town Manager Barry Amos presented the council with a comprehensive sewer study outlining the city's options.

Amos said the options ranged from spending no money and staying out of the sewer business to providing the entire community with a new sewerage plant for $19.8 million.

As the council begins to study its options, Amos said, three scenarios are under consideration for a possible sewer system.

The first scenario is a combination of the school system's Sandy Creek Complex, the proposed John Wieland-Phil Seay planned unit development (PUD) and the proposed 750,000-square-feet office complex on Ga. Highway 74 being developed by Richard Bowers.

Outside of not taking any action, Amos said the town could take limited action and just provide sewer service from the Sandy Creek facility to the Bowers' office park.

Since Wieland is already looking at building a system for his PUD, this alternative would be the lowest cost for the city and still allow the Bowers property to be developed.

Operation costs for the Sandy Creek facility would be $103,900 per year and the city estimates it would bring in nearly $60,000 in revenue.

Another option for servicing the developments would be constructing a new 150,000 gallon-per-day capacity facility. The existing plant at Sandy Creek would remain in place and service the schools and the Bowers' project and the new plant would only be built to serve the Wieland PUD.

Amos estimated the cost of building this small plant would be $2.094 million and annual operating costs would be $149,800. The study estimates the school system, Wieland and Bowers would provide more than $277,000 in wastewater revenue on an annual basis.

The final option would be to abandon the idea of using the school treatment plant and building a 270,000 gallon-per-day wastewater treatment plant. Construction costs would jump to $3.2 million while the revenue estimate of $277,000 would remain the same.

The second scenario in the study looked at providing sewerage to the Ga. Highway 74 Quality Growth District north of Senoia Road. While Hwy. 74 remains largely undeveloped, Amos expects this area to be the town's growth hot spot. The study projects more than 2.6 million gallons of sewer capacity needed for this area and the already planned Wieland and Bowers developments.

If the town chose to upgrade the existing treatment plant at Sandy Creek and build new stations to handle the capacity, the cost would be $18.9 million and generate revenues of $3.45 million per year. Amos estimated the costs of operations would run $1.34 million per year.

The town could also choose not to use the Sandy Creek facility and build all new facilities to handle all the wastewater in the high growth area. The cost for everything new would be $19.8 million, while revenues would remain at $3.45 million a year and costs would stay at $1.34 million.

The final scenario involves providing sewerage to the older parts of the town. For this area, Amos assumed the town would have a wastewater treatment plant up and running and would not have to expend any additional operating costs.

In capital dollars, though, the town would have to spend nearly $5.3 million dollars for pump stations, spray fields and sewer lines to add existing Tyrone residents to the sewerage system. Amos estimated the town would receive $480,000 a year in revenues from town residents on the system.

Since the scope of the Bowers project is estimated at $54 million, Amos said no action would have a negative impact on the town's tax base by losing $54,000 in property tax revenue if it's not built.

Any alternative is going to cost money and Amos suggested passing the costs on to developers and building a project with the capacity to serve future developments instead of adding to the capacity when a new development comes to town.

Mayor Richard Santiago said the town leaders would have to study all the alternatives carefully.

"Why rush? I'm not getting calls saying bring in sewer," Santiago said.

Amos said the town will also have to get a valuation on the Sandy Creek facility from the Fayette Board of Education to get a true picture of the costs if the town wants to buy the facility and use it as part of the sewage solution.