The Peachtree City Water and Sewerage Authority is moving forward with its plans for a watershed assessment.

With a unanimous vote at Monday's regular monthly meeting, the authority allocated $170,600 for a contract with ARCADIS to do an assessment of Flat Creek and Line Creek. There was some discussion of including Camp Creek, which would have cost an additional $18,500, but that was not included in the motion.

The watershed assessment, required in order to obtain the necessary state Environmental Protection Division permits for the expansion of the Rockaway Wastewater Treatment Plant, has been in the planning stages for some time and the scope of the project was reviewed in detail at the April WASA meeting.

The scope of the assessment also has been reviewed by the EPD, and that body concurs, according to WASA director Larry Turner.

Funding for the project is coming from the Rockaway Expansion line item ($50,000) and the Photocircuits line item ($120,600), according to reports submitted at the meeting.

Turner told the board that the cost is reasonable compared to other municipalities in the metro Atlanta area. He added that he believes Peachtree City's costs are kept low in part by the city's stability knowing its buildout size and following its land use plan.

In other business, Turner submitted for the record a letter from the EPD addressing recent violations found in January inspections. The letter indicated that the EPD is now satisfied with the status of the issue addressed, and expressed its appreciation for the prompt attention WASA paid to the matter, Turner said.

Also presented was a letter from local resident Dennis Chase on behalf of the Southern Conservation Trust Inc., regarding the potential closing of the Flat Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant

Chase wrote that the volume of water released by the plant has a great effect on the character of the surrounding wetlands, and requested that the Trust be informed about the plant's possible closure as time goes on.

Chase was in attendance at the meeting, and he said he wrote the letter at the request of the board of directors of SCT.

For informational purposes, Turner submitted to the board a recent article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about watershed assessments in Fulton County, including Camp Creek. The article mentioned a high count of bacterial and fecal matter as well as some erosion problems in the early results of the tests.

A report from the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies projecting future cost increases for water and sewer services was submitted to the board by Turner for informational purposes.

Turner reported that he was pleasantly surprised by the results of last weekend's countywide surplus auction. Expecting somewhere between $20,000 and $25,000 for the goods his department submitted, he learned that the lot of them fetched a little over $41,000.