Last week the Peachtree City Council voted unanimously to deny a request to allow a the city's Water and Sewer Authority to provide 500,000 gallons a day of sewer treatment services to the neighboring town of Senoia, located in Coweta County. What follows are highlights and tidbits of the give-and-take between the Council, city sewer officials Larry Turner and Mike Harman and Senoia Town Manager Richard Ferry.

This is not intended to be a complete wrap-up of every comment made by all parties involved. It is rather shown to get a flavor for the rationale behind Council’s decision. The information is presented chronologically in the order in which it occurred in the meeting.

For the record, the City Council consists of Mayor Harold Logsdon and Council members Cyndi Plunkett, Stuart Kourajian, Judi-ann Rutherford and Steve Boone.

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Senoia town manager Richard Ferry said the town’s current plan is treating about 30-40 percent of its permitted capacity, which is 490,000 gallons. The capacity will be exceeded at a population of about 4,200 people, he said, which “Not only includes the population but the commercial growth to service these people.”

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Ferry added that the Blue Print study of Senoia’s future population includes annexation and growth, and an area all the way up to East Coweta Middle School on Hwy. 16.

Senoia’s current sewer system includes future growth of Heritage Point, and the buildout of the Morningside and Ivy Ridge subdivisions.

In the future, the North Georgia Metropolitan Water Planning District shows Senoia’s current sewer treatment system being decommissioned and the town’s wastewater being treated by Peachtree City.

Other options the town will pursue include expanding application system or adding a treatment plant “somewhere in the Keg Creek, Line Creek area.”

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“We determined that the option with Peachtree City gives us the capacity that we need,” Ferry said, adding that it was also the best option for Senoia. “... That will allow for growth to occur in other areas of Senoia. Our intentions for what we look at for annexation areas would be up on Hwy. 85, along Hwy. 16 going east and west of that.”

“Probably another 500-600 homes” will be built along Rockaway Road, Ferry said.

Senoia’s current zoning ordinance has two categories: R-40 one unit per acre. Other category uses multiplier of .9 over the number of acres to get the number of lots. “We prefer them to be clustered together ... so we can have a large amount of greenspace saved. "So the most you can get out of a 100-acre tract is 90 homes. And we’re not changing our zoning ordinance regardless of which direction this board chooses.”

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Larry Turner, general manager of the Water and Sewer Authority, pointed to a January letter from Carol Couch, Director of the state Environmental Protection Division. Ga law requires EPD to insure compliance with the North Georgia Metropolitan Water Planning District plan. When any permit for water withdrawal or wastewater treatment capacity or any stormwater is sought, “EPD will conduct an audit to determine whether or not they are compliant,” Turner said.

Rutherford: “But we’re in compliance, right?”

Turner: “I don’t know.”

Turner said WASA current flow is 3.89 million gallons per day and no local industries have requested additional sewer flow. Projections for the future include the West Village annexation and septic tank replacement for all homes in the city, leaving an available capacity of 940,000 gallons a day once those are subtracted. If sold .5 MGD it Would leave contingency of 440,000 gallons a day “for any unknowns that may happen in PTC, which is twice what we originally planned back in 2000.”

In the year before the plant was shut down, Photocircuits contributed $508,000 in sewer fees, making it the largest sewer customer for WASA, Turner noted.

Turner also said the authority would not be selling the sewer access at a cheaper rate than charged to Peachtree City residents.

“If we were to take our rate and separate it into treatment and transportation, they would be the same basically,” Turner said. “... Basically Senoia is paying their own transportation costs because they’re bringing their flow directly to the Rockaway Water Treatment Plant.”

Peachtree City WASA customers pay $4.38 per 1,000 gallons of water used, compared to the proposed deal with Senoia which would have charged just $3.50 for 1,000 gallons. But Turner noted that Peachtree City would not be paying for Senoia’s sewer pipes, pump stations and the electricity to run those pump stations.

“For the same service, they are not paying a lesser cost,” Turner said.

WASA is keeping extra property it has at the Rockaway plant which could be used in the future to expand from 4 million gallons a day to 8 million gallons a day, Turner said. “Whether that happens, or when it may happen, we are planning for that so we have the property to do that if it is dictated in the future since they seem to think that we are going to be a regional facility,” Turner said.

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Councilman Steve Boone: Noted that he had gotten some e-mails in last week or so from concerned citizens. “The concern is we’re gonna be maxing out our capacity down the road. I heard today in a meeting ... that there’s gonna be substantial growth in our south end the next 10 years (of Fayette County) How are we going to accommodate that?

Boone also questioned the proposed rate structure for Senoia.

“Does this mean our citizens are getting a 25 percent break over Senoia?” he asked.

Turner replied that the Senoia rate was based only on how much it cost to treat the sewage, factoring out the “transportation costs.”

Boone: “I want to be sure our citizens are getting a better break than Senoia. We built it with our tax monies and the bonds and everything, and that’s a concern of our citizens right now, the type of comments that are coming in, that we want to make sure that we are getting a better deal as citizens of Peachtree City. I know that may be kind of derogatory for Senoia but, you know, build it and they will come. We’ve got to make sure that our citizens are taken care of first.”

Turner replied: “And I understand that. In our negotiations, we take that very seriously. ... When we get down to negotiations we will be very serious about that.”

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Councilwoman Cyndi Plunkett: “Have you done any studies if we don’t do that(sell capacity to Senoia) what the anticipated rate increase would be for our citizens? I know you’ve got a $500,000 shortfall.”

Turner: “Photocircuits was 8 percent of our revenue. (an average sewer bill of $30 was used for the calculations) ... “It could be a 9 percent increase at some point in time.”

Rutherford: “So if the average bill was $30 a month and it was 9 percent it would be $2.70 a month and basically $27 for 10 months and a little quick math on that would make it $32 a year.”

Councilman Stuart Kourajian: “You know Larry, I’m not disputing the fact that you can handle an extra 500 (thousand gallons) and I’m not disputing the fact that from your view it’s a win-win-win. But the one thing I have to look at is in Peachtree City we have an infrastructure, we have roads, we have all kinds of things. And we can handle the 36,000 people that live here. But as we extend our sewer, as we extend commerce, as we build shopping, our neighbors in the county and our neighbors in our neighboring counties build closer and closer to Peachtree City. All of a sudden now our roads can’t handle it, which is quite evident out here on 54. My concern with this is if we start extending the sewer ... we get denser population growth right outside on Rockaway Road, which right now isn’t straightened out. And by the time you build them there and perhaps all these extra houses come in it will be. But still it’s dumping a lot of traffic into our funnels of roadways. And we’re having a hard time now. ... Traffic is a major concern. It’s gonna save us a couple of bucks it sounds like or it’s not going to raise our rates a little bit. But I’ll tell you congestion just outside our Peachtree City borders is what my concern is.”

Turner noted that Senoia’s Rockaway Road area, where the homes’ sewage will be sent to Peachtree City, is basically built out already and those homes are currently have the city’s sewer service.

“That in fact is the sewers that they’re going to reverse, pump to us and they’ll use that capacity elsewhere. And I’m sure the developments on Rockaway Road are not finished. I’m sure there are more houses to be built.

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Mayor Harold Logsdon asks Ferry: “What if this is voted down, what’s plan B for Senoia?”

Ferry said the town has three different options.

“Our second option is construction of a larger land application system. Initial costs would be probably higher than we’re possibly looking at today but probably in the long run a lower cost.”

The town may also build its own treatment plant on Keg Creek, Line Creek or Dead Oak Creek, Ferry said. Another option would be to pump the water back to a place that needs irrigation. “We’re also looking at two other options: one with Coweta County and another with Newnan Utilities.”

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Logsdon: “Larry, if this is not voted up tonight, what will you do with your unused capacity? It just sits there?”

Turner: “It just sits there.”

Logsdon: “It just sits there. Because the county doesn’t want it, right?

Turner:”Nope, the county doesn’t want it. Unless you’re gonna go change their minds.”

Logsdon: “I’m not going to try that.”

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Rutherford: “I think at the end of the day that sewer is frequently preferable to other options just from an environmental impact. It’s certainly better to put clean water back into the creeks than not clean water. When this discussion started a year ago I had the same concerns that I have now. My concern is that, as Stuart said, we had a great road system when we didn’t have a whole lot of traffic and then we did a few small things like Wal-Mart and Home Depot and we didn’t even add any people who lived here, we just added people who wanted to come here. There is no way you’re gonna get around the fact that in the Senoia area south towards that end of town down past where 74 passes out of Peachtree City and moves into Coweta County that growth down there affects us. It affects us every day. Until somebody can figure out how to get a lot of jobs in the area out of Atlanta and out of the airport and back down here, we’re going to continue to travel and every time you open a subdivision, every time you add a road that comes out this way, every time you add a few more people, you add a lot more cars that are going there. At the end of the day, the citizens of PTC are who I’m responsible to and part of my responsibility to them is that we don’t do anything to the detriment of the quality of life that is the reason that people move here. I think adding traffic is not a positive thing for the city. It certainly helps businesses if in fact they’re coming to town to go to the businesses. But they’re going through town and not coming to town. If you’re trying to go to work in the morning and you’re coming out Rockaway Road and you’re trying to take a left and you’re hoping for your life that you don’t get killed, and then you hop on 74 and you head north, that’s not going to change. We’re gonna put in a light so your left turn is going to be easier, but that’s just going to cause more people to flow. And the more people that live in Senoia that need to get to Atlanta the more people that have to pass through Peachtree City to do that because there is no easy way at the moment to get back onto 85 another way. I don’t know that this isn’t a wonderful thing for everybody and you think this is a win-win-win and I can see the win side of it but I can also see the downside of it for people who are just trying to get from point A to point B in Peachtree City every day. So I’m not sure I’ve heard anything that’s going to convince me that this is something we need to do right now.

Turner: “Senoia has options ... What they do is not going to change traffic. We’re discussing things that are in a way irrelevant to the subject we’re talking about.”

Rutherford: “... I agree there’s gonna be growth in Senoia whether we sewer it or we don’t sewer it, whether we sell them capacity or we don’t sell them capacity. There’s not an infrastructure in place at the moment to handle that ..... You’re asking us to say we’re not going to worry about the infrastructure, we’re going to worry about a utility bill. And I’m not sure right now at this moment in time I’m going to deal with that. Not putting them on sewer. You’re right they’re gonna have their (building) permits and they’re gonna have their growth. So telling us you don’t have to worry about that we’ll have the infrastructure in place because it’s 2009, that doesn’t mean I sleep any better at night when I make the decision.”

Rutherford: “... We have our own roads to build and our own growth to deal with. ... Yeah the state’s going to realign Rockaway Road and that’s going to help down there but that hasn’t answered the question about what we’re going to do with other property down there.”

Logsdon tells Rutherford: “You were making some good points there.”

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Dennis Chase, a retired biologist: "I'm going to ... just remind you that just eight years ago the mayor and city council here promised all the citizens that you weren't going to leave the city limits. Six years ago I received that commitment from Larry Turner and the water authority when we went over the watershed assessment. Obviously, you can make those kind of changes since you are in charge of the city but I want to remind you that there have been several very significant commitments to that standpoint."

"Line Creek cannot support more treated sewage than it has right now without one of two things happening. You either degrade the value of Line Creek to a sewage canal or you increase the treatment capacity which is an enormous cost and I'm sure Larry will explain that to you. ... Physically you could do it, but the stream cannot assimilate that amount of sewage."

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Logsdon: "It's a complex issue, but what I've heard is: if we do it or don't do it, it's not going to change the growth pattern in PTC or outside of it. If we don't do it, we're gonna increase the rates, to some degree."

Kourajian: "Those are all opinions that you've heard."

Logsdon: "Yeah those are opinions. I was trying to make a bunch of bullet points here about everything that I've heard. But about all I've heard is it's not going to change anything and our rates are likely to go up. And I kind of like what somebody said, I think Mike said it, that if we go ahead and give the capacity to Senoia, that controls us from annexing any land outside Peachtree City. So I think our citizens would like that."

Rutherford: "How does that keep us from annexing things? They still told us we (would have) 440,000 gallons a day."

Logsdon: "You can't annex near as much."

Plunkett: "Oh, near as much? I kind of like what Dennis said in that once we give it away we can never get it back."

Logsdon: "Yeah I was questioning that. Why not?"

Rutherford: "Well it's a 20 or 30-year contract, for starters."

Logsdon: "Well you get it back in 30 years if it's a 30 year contract."

Rutherford: "But 30 years is a long way away."

Rutherford then pointed out that Tyrone may look to Peachtree City for sewer service in the near future.

Turner: "We looked at Tyrone six or seven years ago. They determined it wasn't feasible to get to us mainly because our infrastructure between here and Tyrone would have to be upgraded since our treatment plant's on the south side of town. That's the reason they went to Fairburn. They couldn't afford to come to us."

Plunkett: "But now Fairburn's not such a good option maybe they're going to need to pay a little more."

Turner: "After they've already spent the money they have to build a force main up there I think they'll come to an agreement."

Rutherford: "... I think, Harold, to say that it doesn't affect what happens in PTC, I can't buy that piece of it. (She then agreed that the City Council can't control Senoia growth).

"What we are here to do is say this is what Peachtree City is, this is what we have, it was Peachtree City tax dollars that got it where it is, and it's Peachtree City citizens that are paying for it. And at the end of the day what does it mean if we don't have it when we need it? What if there's a problem with Line Creek? What do we do if they upgrade the water quality? That definitely affects the quality of life in PTC. Whether they put more people in Senoia and they run them through PTC also affects what we do and it may take them longer if they have to figure out how to get their own sewer system in place, so it may buy us some time. ... I just don't think that we need to be assuming that well, they're going to have growth anyway so we might as well do it, just like you may not want to say ‘well it's not going to make any difference so if we can save them $30 a year maybe that's worth the difference.’ ... If we change the water quality then we truly affect the quality of life in Peachtree City."

Motion to deny the request made by Kourajian. Second by Rutherford. Vote carries unanimously.

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