Council - workshop

Good evening, everyone. I'll call this work session to order at 7 o'clock. This time, I'd like to ask Kathy Knox to give the invocation, please.

Lord Jesus, we thank you for tonight, Lord. We thank you for our lives that you've given us. Lord, you've created us in your image. Be the people that you created us to be. Let us do your will. We represent our town. Lord, let us do the things that you have for us to do. We thank you so much for your blessings and your promises of yes and amen. And Lord, give us peace which casts all understanding as we go through these times. In the precious name of Jesus, we pray.

Amen.

I'd like to ask that all that are able stand and join us in the Pledge to the Flag led by Councilman Turner. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, This time I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the agenda.

So move.

We have a motion and a second to approve the agenda. Is there any discussion? not we'll vote which we aren't supposed to do in a work session but we will to get this started district one yes two yes three yes four yes five yes six yes seven's not here eight yes mayor vote yes agenda is approved and at this time i'd like to call on Jay Hendricks to introduce our speaker.

All right. And also would like to note you do have new wireless mics that are in front of you. We intend to use these for work sessions to try to give a better audio for our viewers on YouTube and for council records. So whenever you want to speak, you know, make sure you press the button to get the green light on your microphone. No different than the mics at the top. Do you have nine of them or just eight?

There are eight that came in the package and one is on the podium.

They are omnidirectional, so you don't have to speak directly into it. So you sharing with Councilman Turner should pick up fine.

I would prefer to have Bob's mic given to Bo, if that's okay.

All right. Well, so but tonight we are focusing this work session on utility water and sewer issues. So the agenda that you have before you kind of gives you an overview. You have a copy of the PowerPoint in front of you. You also have the water wastewater impact fee study that was sent out last week. That will be covered tonight as well as another packet that is from Hazen and Sawyer regarding the decommissioning, which will be covered tonight. So you've got a lot of packet information in front of you. Andrew, our utility director, will be leading the show tonight. I'll be here if need be. Andrew can pitch it to me. But without further ado, Andrew Boddy.

Okay, thank you, Jay. Thank you, Mayor and Council for the opportunity to be here. So that does have to be a little bit closer to me than I thought. So obviously you see that you guys have approved the agenda already. No need to talk about that a whole lot. So the capital improvement plan, we've talked about that, y'all are all familiar with capital improvement conversation. What the capital improvement plan does is it identifies projects regardless of their size or scale that are foreseen and it's based on growth, projected growth, and also some maintenance. the capital improvement plan is necessary in order to develop the impact fee. So it's the first step in the process. So as you see on that slide, capital improvement plan will list anticipated water and sewer projects based on projected growth, as I mentioned, and needed maintenance. Projects put into timeframe, short, interim, and long-term, or intermediate. And those are... essentially five year increments um short term being one to five years intermediate being six to ten and then long term being ten and beyond in today's landscape y'all know we don't know if we can even predict a year or two from now 10 years from now is is certainly out there but there has to be a a thought put into 10 years from now, you know, where do we really think we may be? So even though that's way out there, we've got to look at it. So then there's all kind of formulations and calculations and trigonometry that's involved to come up with impact fees. Ms. Shelby LeBron is behind me. I'll bring her up in a little bit. She's going to speak more on the technical part of how we derived or how we arrived at the impact fees. But some projects can't be included in the impact fee calculations and can't be paid for with impact fee money. A lot of those would be, say, maintenance fees. an upgrade that's not necessarily growth-driven. So it's well spelled out what we can and what we cannot use impact fee money. Now, it can still be part of the capital improvement plan, just not necessarily can be used to come up with the impact fees.

Are we talking about the impact fees that we currently have, or are we doing something different?

We currently have impact fees that were put in place in 2004. This is bringing a whole new capital improvement plan in front of you all that was in your packet. We're introducing that to you tonight, and we will also be introducing a new proposed impact fee associated with that new capital improvement plan.

So it's going to be two separate things.

Well, there'll be an impact fee for water. There'll be an impact fee for sewer. But the capital improvement plan just says, here's what all I think we need to do or growth is.

Which one exists now?

I'm sorry?

Which one exists now?

We have an impact fee now for water and wastewater. It's 20 years old.

Right. I resemble that remark, but go ahead.

You do actually look 20. Well, no, I was here when we did it.

Well, you look 20, Allison. Oh, thank you.

Okay, so we're just adding to it. This is just to update that plan. Updating the plan. Are we updating the fee itself? We're getting to that. I'm sorry.

And that's okay. I'm going to get you there. We're not getting in a real big hurry. We've got an over-under on 1030 tonight. So we're going to take our time, make sure we don't have any questions. We won't leave anything on the table. But the CIP is derived, again, by projected growth as well as needed upgrades and repairs. So as you asked, Councilman Cain, the impact fees, a little bit of history there. We kind of got a hold to it already. The last CIP plan or impact fee study was 2004-2005. So even our long-term goals then are well beyond that now. Based on that original plan, Our impact fees totaled $1,143 for a three-quarter-inch water tap. I may say water tap tonight. I may say water meter. For most of those conversations, the two are the same. Impact fees totaled $1,143 for a three-quarter-inch water tap. The impact fees totaled $1,444 for a sewer tap if the location desired a three-quarter water tap. Now, our sewer impact fees, all sewer impact fees, I believe, are derived based on the customer wanting a three-quarter water connection. And then they go from there. So even though I'm talking about a 1444 impact fee for sewer, it's based on a three-quarter water tap. So if you were to get a one-inch water tap, your sewer impact fee would also increase. Exactly what we just said, large diameter taps had higher impact fees for water and sewer. The reason being, the more water you're using, the more you're impacting our system. Pumps have to work longer to get water to you, sewer pumps have to pump more often to move sewer. So plain and simple, the larger the connection, the more you're impacting our system, the higher the impact fee. In 2004, 2005 timeframe, the town chose to cut these impact fees by 50% for residential connections. That was something that I understand the town council considered and arrived at that point. I've heard maybe it was based on trying to entice growth. I don't know. I wasn't there. You resembled them, Mark. I'm not sure if you were there or not, but it was close.

If it was designed to entice growth, we would have the growth that it was intended to have. It may have been intended to slow down growth that was happening in Lexington County.

Well, it was cut in half. The town voted to cut it in half. Don't know.

If I may.

Yes, sir.

To address the councilman's question, the 2008 comprehensive plan actually projected our current population to be in excess of 6,000. So there was a projection based on the comprehensive plan that would have justified a large population growth trajectory.

With that, I'm going to take the whole. Yeah. It's your call, man.

Michael, you good? All right. So, with that being said, our current water tap impact fee for a residential customer is $571. $571. You'll see that's half of $1143, basically. I mean, you've got to round the number here and there. That's where the town put the fee, which is half. What you got, brother? That's good. All right, the current residential sewer impact fee, if we're talking about a three-quarter water tap, the sewer impact fee is 722. That, again, is 50%. The impact fees are designed to assign the cost of growth to those causing the growth rather than the existing customers. And I want everyone to understand that's the intent of the impact fees, or that's the design. New growth causes us to have to do things to accommodate it, and the impact fees are designed to have the people causing the growth bear a fair portion of the burden of the cost. must be used, impact fees must be used for projects associated with growth and development. We already kind of talked about that. Even though we have a CIP that may list a project that's not eligible for use of impact fees, the impact fees must be used for projects associated with growth. And it may prevent undue impact on the existing users' rates. So everyone who's here now The intent and the design is that the existing customers don't bear the burden of an improvement that has to be made to accommodate the growth. We might not go over. Y'all don't have any questions yet. So we might need to hit the under.

Might need to change that bit.

Might need to hit it. So the capital improvement plans projects. I'm sorry. Summary of projects listed in your CIP, the handout that's CIP. The summary begins on page 12. Page 12 is... I can start on page 12. That's fine. Section 4.1, that's on the water distribution. We'll have conversations about projects on water distribution, wastewater treatment, and then wastewater collections, you might say. Do you all want me to go through the projects? individually i can go through them fairly quickly and and give insight to them is it i don't i don't want y'all to have a yawn fest my intent was to go through them quickly i don't hear anybody saying don't do it so we're gonna do it well i have a quick question yes sir these uh were part of the

RFP proposal originally back approved by council, I believe by January. Does that actually mean that council has approve these projects because this is controlling our growth. This plan will control our growth.

This is the presentation of the study.

So there will be a vote on whether or not to accept Yeah, we're not there yet.

That's probably more October time frame. This is the presentation of that report.

But this will control our growth for the next 30 to 40 years based on where we run these water lines. and what we do with this money. Because once this plan is approved, this impact fee cannot be applied to any other project other than what is here. Can it be amended?

I will turn to Ms. Shelby. Ms. Shelby, don't get up from your seat yet. You don't have to, but I'm under the impression we can easily do it every five years. Can we do it every one year?

Yeah, I think you need to look at these, especially depending on the growth.

So we can look at this as often as we'd like.

Is this just a 10-year plan, not 30?

No, this is identifying short, intermediate, and long-term. And long-terms basically are 10 years and beyond.

Okay, 10 years and beyond. So if I may, Paul, typically, you know, I've always been taught that capital improvement plans should be updated at least around every 10-year mark. Obviously, we're at 20 years, so we're trying to catch up for lost time. But, yes, it should be more frequent than we have been.

Okay, so I will talk about all of these quickly, or we'll take as long as y'all want me to take on them. So starting there, 4.1, the water distribution, proposed 10-inch water main. There's some drawings on down throughout your papers, but I can tell you all what we got there. Basically, if you were to drive out Summerlin Highway, go past the high school, go past Alfre Riven, formerly known as Hartwell, Durango Drive, turns to the left and goes into the Ponderosa Clubhouse. That's where our water line stops. Now, if you can put yourself over on North Lee, heading out of town toward Summerlin Highway, our water line stops roughly at Range Road. So, item one there, the proposed 10-inch water main, is connecting those two points. We've identified that connection as one of... the most influential loops that we can make in our system as far as water flow, the hydraulic movement of water. We kind of use the term new water or, you know, if that loop was made, water may get there a little faster than having to technically take the route that it takes now. So that, item number one, has been identified as a pressure stabilization, equalization, kind of helps out with some pressure, doesn't necessarily equalize the pressure, will help out with some pressure, but will definitely help out with some hydraulic flows. Yes, sir.

How far out is our service area? How far out 391 can we go? The county line? That's my understanding. Where Saluda County comes in?

That's my understanding. Or we can go outside of the county if that property is within the town limits, is my understanding.

But out 391, it wouldn't be in the town limits.

Not currently, I don't believe. Yeah. Okay, so that's – I'm sorry. Yes, sir.

If I may, just for clarity's sake, the summary is on page 12, but if you go back to 4.1 that Andrew has referenced, that's on page 6. That gives you just a few lines about each of these projects.

Yeah, we got the projects listed in here in a couple different places. There's an overview starting on page six. There's a summary on 12, and then there's some maps further over. I'm actually reading off of page six, if that helps you guys keep up with it. Sorry about that. I apologize, because I did say the summary started on 12. Thank you, Jay. No problem. So the conversation we just had about from Durango loop back into Range Road, there are no existing water lines there. This would be new installed water lines where none currently exist.

Right. So is there a plan to replace old water lines? in your impact.

That would be considered maintenance, could not be used for impact fee funds.

Unless you were bypassing the old lines that are much needed repairs, right? If you're putting new lines in and you bypass the old line that is down there, which is, is it galvanized? We're at the water lines is going into the folks houses. Those are galvanized pipe.

Well, so we have some galvanized pipes going into residences. We have some plastic, we have some tubing copper. It's a, it's a whole wide spectrum out there.

Yeah. But if we could use, can we use the impact B to replace existing lines? By bypassing the old lines, and you're referring to.

Our old lines, not a customer's old lines, our lines, because.

I think that, well, 1, we have so many ruptures. That they need to be addressed and. The quality of the water, I mean, we're getting new water, and we run a new water through old lines. You know, people are paying a little bit more for the water because we're being more accurate with the meters, but they're still getting old water. New water system, new water source, old water because you got old pipe.

Well, maybe it's just new water that went through an old pipe.

I think it's new water. New water going through an old pipe. Because I think, Mayor, I think in the scripture it says something about putting old wine, new wine and old wineskins. Yeah. So we don't want to put new wine and old grapeskins.

My guess would be the only way you could do that if you had a line that wasn't big enough. And you had property that was going to develop down there. If you had to put in a bigger line, because of that development, then you could do it. Otherwise you can't. Money. Yeah, because you would have it's gotta be used on projects that will serve from what I'm reading projects that will serve new customers. And that's that's the way. So. If you had, I don't know what size that I know down to 45, it used to be a 2 inch line. What goes down the range road now? It's a 10 inch line going there.

The rough consideration I was talking about stops at range or roughly at range, I do believe that's a 10 going down through there. I think there's some little twos coming off, but this proposal was going back to at least a minimum six inch line to get enough flow to create that. And I was going to say basically what you said, impact fees can only be used for growth-derived projects. Now, if you wanted to ask a technical question, is one house growth? I guess it is, but it probably doesn't satisfy the requirements of growth.

It's growth.

I wish I had a... How many houses would...

You're talking about infielding, right? So how many houses have grown? Because some people count one new person in town as grown, right? One new business. It is, but I wouldn't let that go.

If I had passed the bar, I would probably have a better answer for you.

So what are you trying to say about our economy?

Well, I'm just trying to say I failed it four or five times. They kicked me out and said, you can't do this no more. But no, I've never tried for it. I don't exactly know the definition of growth as it relates to your question.

Well, I mean, you know, when I talked to Bob about growth, he says, well, we had 50 new people in the town. Well, 50 new people in a town of 5,000, I mean, technically it is growth.

Actually, we're in a recovery period. We have yet to attain our maximum growth. population. However, you would sell this particular loop as the accessing the 50 acres that's out by Ofre and the 400 acres across it as being potentially new customers. You could not use this fund simply to increase the flow rate. Is that correct? So you would be accessing new customer base with this.

That's a good point. I would like to say where we are with this presentation right now, we're still on the capital improvement plan. We're not yet talking about projects that could be tied to the impact fee money. So this is just listed as part of the capital improvement plan.

But you have to justify spending that money on this particular line, and you cannot justify it simply by improving the quality of the water.

So the capital improvement plan lists projects that we foresee – needed to be done for various reasons. In order for us to use impact fee money to pay for a capital improvement project, the capital improvement project must be derived or driven by growth. So now we're just identifying projects that we believe need to be done.

Proceeding growth or real growth?

The capital improvement plan is identifying projects that need to be done for a gamut of reasons.

And if I may interject, while looping the system may not appear to be a significant improvement, we have had multiple times where Hartwell and 5060 customers were off without water because of one water main break. especially when the construction was going on in the high school. The main to that industry was turned off. They were unable to operate because they had no water. So this would provide a second loop. We would be able to isolate the system better. So there are areas that would be improved beyond just flowing water from two different directions.

Okay, I have a question.

Yeah, a company does similar things with switching. If you have a line issue, they just blow a switch. back feed separated and this this would give us the potential of the ability to isolate break to isolate still not not disturb as much water customers anymore than we had to by looping that line that's the advantage because once you reach the high school there is only one line that goes out there very similar to what we will discuss shortly with the lake system with system two yeah so

Council member Hartley, you had a question, I believe. I do.

My question is, so what projects are being identified right now for as growth? Are we looking at industry? Are we looking at residential? All right. So identify.

So. The capital improvement plan. I keep hearing you say that, yes. The capital improvement plan is what we're talking about. The capital improvement plan are projects that we see need to be done for various reasons, not necessarily because of growth. That's the capital improvement plan. Impact fees... have to be used for projects that are growth-driven. Did I state that the way we understand it?

Okay. So growth-driven, is that residential or is that industry? I think that could be both. Could be both. I think that could be both. That was the answer I was looking for. Yes, ma'am. I think that could be both. Water consumption. Yes, ma'am.

Water consumption, whatever water is being used for, whatever project there is. The need for the line increases water consumption. Okay.

I wanted to be more specific in that that I got it.

I apologize for not not answering. I got it. Yeah. Growth. Yes.

My understanding is. Capital improvement plan is 1 issue, right? The other issue is impact, but this list does not necessarily mean these funds would come from. Impact page, we would probably have to find other sources. If we cannot prove growth factor, we would probably have to find funding from other sources. Exactly. This list does not actually would not deplete the total amount, or it may exceed, but it is a totally separate issue. So we're discussing what we need, and then we can discuss whether or not those needs can be paid for by capital, by the impact fees.

But it could be paid from the

it from selling water good good then these projects could be paid with impact fees if they qualify for growth so we're identifying projects that need to be done then if we can attach the growth to that project then it becomes impact fee eligible So we're just identifying projects. That's the first one. So a lot of these water distribution projects listed on page six are going to be very similar. Just flow and hydraulic and looping, as Jay mentioned. The second one was Cedar Grove Road. Right now we're on Cedar Grove Road outside, out past our new tank off of Oldfield. page okay figure two of your maps if you wanted to sort through and find that I don't exactly have what page it's written on but down in the bottom right corner of your maps it'll say figure two but it's probably about where your staple may be That's a rough drawing. So we serve out to the lake, but it's what we would like, what I refer to as a lollipop. It's one line going out, and it kind of makes a loop. So if the single line, and there may be a better one. Flip through there. There's a better map.

Figure one. Figure one. Okay. Figure one. Okay, there you go.

Figure one. Figure one. And I hate to flip through on my stuff because I'll get lost. The blue lines are existing water lines. Excuse me. Blue lines are existing. So that line originates. The town goes out. to the new tank at Oldfield, goes on out past Oldfield, makes its way out to 378, goes across 378 and feeds the Harborwatch subdivision, which is the loop up at the very top of the map. That's the blue. The proposed projects that now I'm talking about, Cedar Grove Road to Rock and Creek Road is in green. So that would provide a loop out to the Harbor Watch area, which would give just better water flow. It helps everything in the event of failure of the main lines out that way. So that's just one loop on there. Yes, ma'am.

These proposed that you have here, are there potential customers that amount to... A good meeting customers that would be on that proposed route.

In my opinion, the area out Cedar Grove 378. And across 378 are very appealing for for new growth. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

I have one last.

Yes, sir.

The junction with the blue line or the new red line that ties in, is that at the old tie-in with Gilbert Summit?

So the red line picks up on Cedar Grove Road where we stop, and it goes down to Ridge, and it turns right on Ridge. So the red line is Cedar Grove, then turning right on Ridge Road. tying back into the lake at what I call Roy's Landon, but where Ridge Road crosses the lake.

To answer Councilman Hall's question, if you look at Figure 3, the old tie-in with Gilbert Summit is on Windmill, where it turns off of Windmill. That is Orrin Adams Road. That is where that former one is. The line... On Cedar Grove, two windmill was sized as a 12-inch line for future growth. The line that goes down windmill is an 8-inch line. That's correct.

I'm just looking to determine whether or not the new red line would be an effective bypass of all of the old existing line that has been an issue over the years and will probably continue to be because of the way it was constructed.

Yes, sir. So the red line comes off of the new pipe that is in the ground. Yes, sir.

And the new pipe went to the old.

Yes, sir. Yeah. The tie-in is.

So this will eliminate a potential disaster, which is always there.

Well, not necessarily eliminate, but it would provide an alternate route for water during a critical situation. So red and green could be done simultaneously. The part of red that's on Cedar Grove could actually be tied to the green project. We had to put a line of separation somewhere on the plan. Either way provides an alternate loop out there to help accomplish the task. Green, you know, the bigger you can make the loop, or the more you can encompass of existing area or existing water lines the more you can loop the better off you are you know you can you can loop it a third of the way out there but you haven't accomplished as much as you really loop the whole thing so the red line and the green line are essential loops to connect and and and add flow out there now For the longest time, there was a lack of flow out there because of the source, but that was known when the project was done. Now that we're on, the new project has been put in, that phase two out there, we have better water flow. We even have flow that we believe is satisfactory for fire suppression, but it could be better by being looped and we're still limited in places now because we do have places that are blue that are 8-inch. In fact, most of the blue lines are 8-inch. So we're proposing, you know, I'm not proposing y'all give me the money right now. We're just presenting these projects. But these projects out there are 12-inch lines that we're proposing. What you going to add, Flo?

Can I ask a question about the agreement from people? Ask for city water or public water that we have an annexation agreement if the opportunity presents itself. We don't want to put our water out there. We don't encourage them to annex when the time presents itself.

So my understanding of our annexation agreement is whenever it was enacted, and I'm not sure of that date, whenever it was enacted, everyone after that date that requests new water service signs an agreement that says, I agree to be annexed if the property becomes contiguous to town. Jay, do you have a timeframe on when that was put in place? I do not.

I know that the older customers that were original whenever we took over the system, those predated the annexation agreement. So Harbor Watch, some of the newer homes in Harbor Watch would, but getting contiguous would be very difficult just because the vast majority came on board at one time.

Is there an overlay available for our service area to see exactly how much of our service area would be covered by these extensions?

I could go print one off if you want me to go get that.

We don't run to the Saluda County line, for instance.

Well, our jurisdiction would, but our lines don't at present.

That's what I'm saying. How well does this cover our service area? We're doing loops, but is there richer territory? We're digging for gold in this location, but is there more advantage to running instead of looping that way, looping the other way?

Okay, so if you look at number one.

Yes, sir.

the left most area in blue up there that says lazy day acres yes that's basically our easternmost point because that's the bridge there now at um is it um coast cove to cove marina where the triple decker quadruple decker boat storage thing has been built so we don't cross that bridge We're on the saluted side of that bridge, the western side of that bridge. So we basically go to the bridge and that's indicated in blue at the Lazy Day Acres. And then we would go west to the county line is our service area. The combination on figure one of purple, red, green, and blue Are are pretty good and you can actually see what I believe is the county line dotted in yellow to the to the left of the of the green.

So, so we're pretty much in the Eastern half of our service area and. The Western half is not addressed.

Right that's close that the green going straight across 378. that's goes out to. Oh, that's old Lexington goes out that way. So then you've got some spurs to the left off of old Lexington and you certainly could go down 378 a little bit further. I'm not positive how far it is from old Lexington to the saluted county line mile or so. I'm guessing.

Well, the county lines down there, whatever that road is, it goes by old county line store.

Yeah, that's where the line is. Yeah.

So, councilman hall to to your question. Um, ultimately. I think it would be to our advantage to extend. That way. my focus on these drawings were to try to capture a fair portion of that potential growth as well as complement our system by looping don't you think we should have lines out there big enough to support further expansion uh i would like to see us go with

a minimum of a 10-inch out there on that loop because you could look for growth out at the lake.

Everything we're proposing out there is a 12-inch, including the purple line. I hadn't got to the purple line yet, but everything we're proposing now is 12-inch.

So that'll give us plenty of pipe to carry water out there.

be in better shape than we are now and and the purple guys uh just and ladies while we're talking the purple originates here in town on north lee at devil's backbone that goes out devil's backbone um turns left on dog legged and turns right on um i just said the name a while ago ridge road so it does kind of what the mayor just mentioned it it um gives another feed out that way, which is even making our system even more sustainable in the event of a line failure here or there. Plus it captures some potential growth out that corridor. So right now we're limited by the existing eight inch lines along Devil's Backbone and Ridge Road right out around the lake. Those 8-inch lines are basically limiting us now. They used to not because we were just getting fed by 8, but now we're getting fed by 12, so we got a little bit more water than we used to have, we believe.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. And Jay will come back in with the map and we'll definitely go back to that question. But the next project you see on there is an elevated tank out that way. There'll be some strategic, and I'm still on page six. There'll be some strategic locations of that tank to provide ideal pressure here and there. But ultimately, even if we loop which would be great but two reasons there are two reasons why you have elevated storage tanks one of them is an additional stored capacity that's readily available if you open up a fire hydrant it comes pouring out because water's up high the other reason is it creates pressure so if we did experience some growth out toward lake having an elevated tank would be a reserve storage capacity. We've got three here in town, plus the new one out of town. It'd just be an extra storage capacity out that way. Common practice when you see water systems expanding, y'all ride down the road, y'all see water tanks all over the country. That's the thought behind that. So that's listed there as well. and the other one we've already kind of talked about, uh, Cedar Grove to Ridge road time back in at, at what I called Roy's landing or the existing. Um, so those are all listed. Now, those that we have talked about are listed in our short term. Um, those are things that we believe need attention in the next five years. Um, Anything can change and move something up or down the list. But we could argue all night as to whether or not something fits in the short term or the intermediate or the long term, but we had to put something somewhere. So that's kind of what we did there.

Will that water tank open up the possibility of having to have additional chlorination capability or to go stale?

Well, they have to take care of it at our purchase point, but not at our selling point. So out there, if we were to design a tank, all that would have to be hydraulically modeled. That would be a consideration that would have to be taken. But the tank would really only be justified – with a more growth as far as impact now we could go do it if we want to just put the money in it but i would think that the loops may be more reasonable right now than the tank because of exactly what you said we don't want a tremendous capacity out there right now if we're not turning the tank over so to speak now you could downsize the tank to match it so that's it's kind of it's just an idea out there just kind of just look at and just out of curiosity and i i know we're on a time schedule but what is the average life of uh water in the system

as far as the chlorination effect.

It's one day old when we get it.

Yes, at least.

That's the hydraulic models, one day old. I could not tell you exactly what it is, but it's probably, please don't quote me on this, but based on some readings we're seeing, I would say that it's a half day older than that at the lake because there is no stored tank out there. The only capacity is in the line, so it's getting used pretty regularly. We also have some pockets of prudy.

Let me rephrase the question. Scientifically, what is the maximum age of water? before it needs to be re-fluorinated?

I don't know the answer to that question. I think that probably depends on your elevated storage and how your temperatures and the condition of your pipes. Now, not necessarily your game, Ms. Shelby, not obligated answer. Do you have a better answer than I had on? Okay.

It depends on the type of chlorination they do, too. Absolutely. They use chloramines, which has proven to be pretty long. Got a pretty long life in getting it distributed with chlorine in it.

So temperature, condition, age, turbulence, all those factors affect it. I apologize for not having a hard-set answer on that. Now, at the bottom of page six, we're going to come back in town. Proposed 12-inch water line. Right now, our 12-inch water line is on Liberty Street, and it goes up Charleston back toward number one highway. That is represented on a map. I'll tell you when you get to it.

I think it was the one you just passed right there.

Well, we've got figure seven. So on Town Pond Road, our water line stops at Ms. Frances Miller's house. There is no water line on the entire section that's colored red on figure seven. That is another spot that's been identified as a very good loop for us to make in town. We've got 10 inch lines coming out back around the schools out there. They work their way around town pond and they dead end. And then our 12 inch essentially is at Liberty and Charleston. So that section would be making that loop. And yes, sir. Yeah, good point. Thank you.

So that opens up service to the center fit property.

That will be flowing by. The property you referenced Mr. Hall, the center field property. It'd be starting this Francis Miller's coming on around by the town pond when it hits 178, but turn right and head back up towards the plane. Okay. Yes, sir.

So, is there a gap? Okay. So currently we. We have a line down liberty, but then it turns left back.

The 12-inch. There's a 2-inch, I think, from Liberty. I believe it's a 2-inch from Liberty down to 178. Okay. So I did misspeak. I did say there were no lines in there.

Which would not support 300 or 400 homes.

No, sir.

Okay.

And would not really accomplish your flow, you know, looping and everything.

So we would long-term end up putting that line in anyway if that property was developed.

But it doesn't look like they're expecting much development in that area from what I'm looking at here.

Some of the projects, like I said, for development, some of them are flow. And the other one we talked about is trying to create loop systems.

Yeah, I don't see anything coming out there.

Is this a school map? Roughly. Okay. Got one for me too.

Thank you.

All right. So as he said, we're number four. I cannot tell you exactly what I'm seeing here. My It's basically our school district. I'm trying to find an originating point. It looks to me like under the number four down and left there are two number fours the top number four looks like up under it is leesville would y'all agree with that that's correct yeah okay so can can you all find what i believe is highway number one leading from leesville over to the number five okay so our dividing line is the bold black line that heads north and south off of number one so that north turn there is on old field road at our tank and that makes this way out to cedar grove turns left on cedar grove and if if i can point if y'all can see exactly where i'm pointing and i don't i don't know if y'all can can i'll tell you what See what I have circled here. That circle is windmill road. where we tied in originally to Gilbert Summit. So the right part of my circle where the line heads north again is a dirt road that cuts through Orrin Adams Road. So that's our connection area there, if you will, that we talked about earlier when we disconnected from Gilbert Summit and we fed through. Then it goes out, and I'm thinking that's 378 that's running, roughly east to west with a slight northern canter but that's our service area so mr hall does this map even though we don't have our lines overlaid can you can you get a Fair vision, or would you like for me to show you?

No, this is fine.

Okay.

Thank you.

The existing water line is pretty much the boundary between Batesburg-Leesville and Gilbert Summit. On that side? Yeah, on that side, yes. And then the county line to the west.

Okay, so I'll give you all a moment, if you want to, to look at that and ask me a question about the map that Jay just handed us, if you all got any questions about that. So I can I tell you what I can do for y'all. I'm going to draw. I'm going to draw. Please don't go home and put a magnifying glass on this and say, Andrew told me a lie, but.

see kind of where i'm at here that's the loop those are the loops that's the green and the red

Yeah, I need colored pencils and I need a laser that don't disappear on the screen. I've got a laser, but it don't show up on the screen. Y'all ready to move along? All right. Flipping over to page 7. And y'all, when we get to wastewater, they're going to go a lot faster. We get page seven. Wastewater, I mean, you can make water go wherever you want it to go, but wastewater's got to go downhill unless you pump it, and that gets complicated. So the top item on page seven originates roughly at the intersection of South Lee and Sheely Road. goes down South Lee to Highway 178. It would then turn right, coming back toward town, going through Lester Parish, over to 391, and then back up to Davis Pond. It makes a W. It's represented on your map with a W. That makes a loop for Highway 391 and the Sheila Road, South Lee, Brody intersection out there. It's a loop. It's identified as being helpful. Excuse me. And it is a potential growth area. It leads.

We went through about four growth potential. How many loops you got?

We can loop this thing until we run into the cattle line, and then we've got to stop, I guess.

I mean, how many loops did we look at here? We looked at at least three or four, right?

Well, two loops in town, and then the lake system looping as much as we can. And that loop, when you loop something, you just get better flow. But that W is part of... another project listed there which is a continuation of of the water line down ice 178 to i-20 that exit at i-20 certainly in my mind is a potential spot for needing water down the road so these two projects basically put us in a better position to serve that area should that day come

Right. So now, when we talked about looping water and providing water, and we're also talking about annexing our water customers automatically, right?

If they fall into the criteria.

Well, I mean, when they get new service, they're going to be, they have to sign a letter saying that they're going to be annexed into the town.

It's got to be continued. They got to touch another property.

But eventually everybody's going to be, everybody that's getting our water is going to be contiguous. And the fact that we, when we put the lines in the ground, we own that right away, right? Which makes everybody contiguous anyway. But that's not my point. My point is, if you do that, how big are you making the tap?

Well, I understand your thought. But any one piece of property can stop. If three people own property side by side and the person in the middle says – you know, doesn't have water or they were a water customer before the agreement, then it stops. You know, the only way it can move out is the person before you per se fell into the category.

So yeah, I understand that. I understand your question as well. Yeah. So you, you really, we talk about adding loops on a map, but what we're really talking about is adding another five, 6,000 people to the town. Best case scenario, or it depends on how you look at it. Worst case scenario, but you, every time you loop and you add people to the waterline, you potentially add someone to the town.

Here's the thing. If you add people, That group of people, if they aren't in town, they're going to be using town facilities. So they're sitting out of town drinking our water and using our sewer, causing us to have to spend money. We're not getting any benefit across the board to the town other than selling them water and sewer.

Well, I understand that. I don't have a problem with it. People sitting at home might not understand the impact of what we're really talking about. You know, we talk about selling water and providing services. That's fine. But there may be some people sitting home saying, you know, I'm moving to Batesburg because it is a small town of 5,000 people. And now we're talking about adding maybe a potential other side of 10,000. Yeah. I don't have any problem with that. I'm not arguing for or against it. I'm not arguing for or against it. I'm just telling you, as we sit and we start talking about this, there are some people out there who are not aware of and they might not want to live in a town that's 15,000 people.

I'm just saying we're explaining the people. The councilman's interpretation of the laying of line actually means that we own that property is, in my interpretation, incorrect. We lay them along the roadway.

You can disregard that. We don't own the right-of-way. That's fine, but that's not taking away from my point. That's not my point. My point is the fact that the result of what we're doing And I'm not saying whether it's good or bad, but folks need to know as a result of what we do, we could actually. Increase the population of the town by 5 to 10,000 people, every other utility city of Columbia.

It's the champion string and access. They ran a shoe string and picked up Columbia. And right in the backyard, because they did it on a shoestring, they put the water and they did all that. But, you know, and then got smart and they annexed all the way up the peak exit on 26. so they can't do that again, but. Every group that's selling water does what we're doing, so we got to be in the ballgame.

I'm not debating whether we're in the ballgame. I'm just saying that people moved here in the town.

I understand what you're saying.

They need to know what we're doing, how it's going to affect.

That doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to expand out there tomorrow, but if the

Opportunity presents itself then as long as we up front with the citizens who know that, you know, because a lot of people will tell you. I don't want to live in election. I don't want to live in election. I don't want to, you know, we look at growth differently as. Caretakers of the town and as elected officials. But there are residents out here, long-time residents, who may look at this a little bit different. That's all I'm saying.

If I may inject a couple of points, I think what Councilman Cain is getting to is it will spread the population growth out. And I think Councilman Hall has talked about that before. Instead of focusing the growth on the center of town, having the growth on the outer edges. And I think that these capital improvement plans would work towards that goal of pushing the growth out of the center of town, which would improve traffic on the interior of town. Also, you know, to the point of most of these projects are out of the downtown, out of our town limits. Just remember from history, you know, we used to have the Batesburg and the Leesville Commission of Public Works, and they encompass those school district areas. So when they merged and then consolidated into the town, we have that water district. So it sounds odd for the town of Batesburg-Leesville to be discussing properties eight, ten miles out of town, but that is the history there. But to your point of, yes, it would grow the population. The town limits could be pushed out, but I think that goes back to Councilman Hall's point before that maybe that is, and I think you've also made that point, that the growth further out is good compared to stacking it on top of people.

How to reduce population density. Hi, our concern is congestion related to population.

Thank the thing. Let's don't fool ourselves and thinking putting it out. There's not going to be a problem. Go ask. Oh, it's going to be Lexington sees it all time. So don't think it's not coming. It's coming. Well, spread it out. It's not going to stop it.

My point it's here.

85% of 85% of our traffic congestion problems come from outside our town limits already.

I'd like to ask another question about what a little change in the subject. I've read a little bit along, especially out of the way where you have a more dense population. A lot more have moved in there. Maybe not so much on this side of town. But they're no longer able, according to DHEC, to use wells anymore. Because, or whatever, it's not DHEC now. It's DES. They don't like them to have wells because the sewage and the wells are running together and so they won't let them use wells now, like in the past years ago. So there is almost a need, a demand, for public water in Pennsylvania. Is that correct?

So I have heard exactly what you have said in my opinion. I wouldn't have any information on that that the general public wouldn't have. I've heard that that area. may not be as appealing to put a well as it used to be, which would 100% justify the need or necessity or desire to have public water.

Well, I'm just thinking on, you know, we're talking about even going out in 10-year plans, are we going to have that growth that has come or is coming into Lexington County, or are we going to have that same situation where it's all going to be

i feel like uh i feel like they're very closely tied together yeah this addresses water what about sewer because i would assume based on uh the requirements of the property that we were looking at uh the kirk what people used to call kirk which is no longer a realistic requirement but The demand for sewer in these areas out there are adjacent to the lake because of the nature of the soil. The demand for sewer would be just equally as high as it is for water because they're running out of the ability. You put a 200 Uh, unit, uh, high density housing, the sewage problem is very significant. Do we have a plan here to extend our lines along?

The same most of those developments I don't like. Already had, so they use what's commonly known as a wet system where they have septic tanks. And they pump, so they're already, they're already tied in the sewer is not coming to us. It's going to.

But they have to pump it on a regular basis.

They pump it every day. Well, they do have septic tanks, but then they have a pump. The way the system is supposed to work, they have a septic tank to process the solid waste. Then they have a pump to pump what would typically go into the drain field to leach out into the soil and be absorbed. They pump that into the system and it takes it to a sewage treatment facility, wherever it may be. Now, they don't really have true sewage systems like we have in town where they take the raw sewage and go.

Is that a force main? You're talking about a force main?

Well, yeah, force mains, but each house has got to have its own pump.

Right, yeah. And then it goes into a system. It goes into a horseman.

It goes into whoever.

It's got to be going to West Columbia. Well, the town of Lexington is the sewer provider, isn't really the right word. Sewer taker. Whatever the right word is. Do they process it there? They pump it all the way over to West Columbia. It all goes to West Columbia.

So then who's going to do the sewer? Yeah, who's going to do the sewer for all these buildings?

Well, just because we're looping the system to help put ourselves in a less precarious position in the event of a major issue doesn't necessarily mean there's going to be an increase of customers. Now, we feel like it probably will be. So who's going to take the sewer? Well, Lexington has the majority of that area in their sewer. Who's responsible for the building?

How about Tornado?

So it gets pretty complicated, and there may be somebody in the room who can answer the questions better than me, but the sewer area allocations, there are some areas, I think, that are not yet allocated. And if I understand that correctly, that's part of the 208 plan. They're not all areas are signed like water. Would that be your understanding? If you have water, you have to have sewer. Right.

We are protected. It's an assignment. Somebody else got to come in here. My understanding is it defines our water district, which we are protected from intrusion by anyone else without our permission. I'm not worried about intrusion.

I'm worried about creating a dam for sewer.

We're not guaranteed that no one can come into this area and provide sewer. What I'm saying is we've created...

Sure, sure. Let me say this, too, to kind of go back.

Someone has to agree to take the sewer. It's not just going to be 100 houses built and say, oh, who's getting it? That all has to be part of a prior plan. Sewer, people are restricting, as we talked about. You can get water to go here, yonder, and everywhere. It'll go. Sewer's got to either flow downhill or be pumped. So then we start looking at limitations of pump piping and even – You can take it to limitations that are existing treatment facility. Absolutely. So all those type issues are there. So the water routing. Again, if it's for an impact, you know, it's growth. But a lot of these we talked about aren't necessarily impact fee projects. These are just hydraulics and putting ourselves in less precarious positions should something bad happen.

I mean, but we have intermingled that in the conversation. where we're talking about capital improvement, but we also talking about growth and that language has become intermingled. And the reality is that if you, wherever you put order or, uh, Uh, houses, you got to have some type of sewer plan, but someplace for the word to go. So we need to have a realistic conversation about, you know, we need to talk about that in a comprehensive way. Or we just need to say, this is a capital improvement loop for. Our own purposes, but to say that, okay, we're going to create these loops. And these new lines, and you can probably sell water off of them. That kind of gets... It's getting really murky to me.

Councilman, if I may interject, we do have probably a third of our existing water customers do not have sewer service, even in town. Yeah, we do not have as extensive of a sewer service. I am well aware. Yeah, there's plenty in District 4 that are the same. So it's probably two-thirds of our in-town customers that do not have sewer.

They're grandfathered, though, Jay. Those are people... Who didn't have sewer before we started talking about expanding. And don't, don't get me wrong. Yeah, this is these are people that were grandfathered. You live that you got a new house for no sooner.

It's easy to sell water.

Yes.

Hard to sell sewer. Yes. Because it's expensive to pump it.

I understand. That's my point.

If it can't flow on its own, the only other option is to pump it. It's a lot of houses out there that they have public water. They have to have set the tanks and drain bills. I have public water, but I got to fix that great bill because I can't possibly get the sewer because I'm downhill from the system.

I totally understand that, and that's not my point. My point is, if you, knowing that, right, and you create loops over here where they might be in a situation where you are in, where they can't get sewered, we need to identify that and realize that might just be a capital area and not an impact area because they're not going to be able to get sewered. And I also want to say that I've been championing growth outside of the town for 20 years. So I'm not opposed to growth going outside of town. I want to make that very clear. But we do have to look at where we're putting these loops and where we can realistically expect growth. If we can't get sewer out there, you can't build houses out there.

Well, Councilman, I would refer to your map. Number five is Gilbert Summit. They have no sewer at all. If you look at seven, the shaded area on that map, that is Joint Municipal. They do not provide sewer. Lexington has extended tentacles into those areas, including ours in Region 4. But honestly, Lexington doesn't treat their own water. They ship it all the way to the river at Casey, West Columbia. Yeah, so...

city we were on city water but we were on city water but we were we were on septic All the houses in the neighborhood were septic because they couldn't pump. It's possible. It's a lot more common.

Kathy, you just said that DHEC is making people get off of septic, right?

No.

Not necessarily.

No, no, no. What I'm saying is when there's so much septic around, they don't want people to drill wells for their drinking water because there's so much septic when you have so many houses close by. I'm saying that, but still, we can move on because we're hitting the over now.

We can move on. All I'm saying is that wherever you put water, you're going to have to put sewer. And if we're talking about loops that don't have sewer opportunities, we don't need to be thinking about them.

Why would we have to put sewer? I'm saying the opposite. Why can't we sell water without selling sewer?

Well, it's fine. I mean, if you think it's going to allow them to have septic tanks, that's fine.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying is the opposite. If we annex them into town, we don't have to guarantee them.

I understand. So we will allow them to have septic systems? So they will be allowed to have their own septic system?

That's not up to us to allow it anyway. That's a DES decision.

All right, but they're coming into the outskirts. As you said, they were shoestring annexing. So what happens within the city limits where the people are not on the sewage?

It depends on whether the developer is going to make arrangements and whether they can put a sewer line in. There are places in town You couldn't possibly put a sewer line in and tie it into the system.

If I may interject, so when a developer or a regular home builder, you know, Councilman Spradley built a house a few years ago, so they come in, we will communicate with Andrew to see what water and sewer is available. That is one of the very first steps. And if sewer is not available, they have to go to DES and go through that process to see if they would be able to get a septic tank And typically, if we say it's not available, they will be allowed to if the property perks, if it is suitable. So they may still have to do a perk test to see if it works. But there is a process in place for that already. And we have had multiple houses over the last year to be built without.

Okay. So, Jay, with the first phase of this new development up the street here on 23th, Are they going to be tapped into the sewage? Yes, ma'am. All of the large developments, yes, ma'am, they will all be tapped. What's that, Sheely Road as well, what they're doing over by?

Summerland has water and sewer. All of the subdivisions have it. There's Enfield that Councilman Cain spoke about earlier. Enfield is where you might see it where there's no – Councilman Hall just mentioned Ruby Street. Ruby Street doesn't have sewer, so they have septic tanks. Septic.

So what I'm looking at, there are quite a few houses, homes going up for sale in my district, and it's on a specific street. I'm, I'm, I'm consciously aware of the fact that we have citizens who've been longstanding moving out of the area. In my district. And I'm looking at, I heard particularly some were moving up to homes that were being built up on that 378 up there where we annexed that shoestring area where we're talking about Harbor Watch. And also up there, they are creating some tiny home communities. So we're talking about water going there and looping them in. I'm concerned about the infrastructure in here, our local town residents. What will happen? Should we have a massive, massive exodus from Batesburg to Leesville and leave a few of us senior citizens over here? I'm really concerned about this. So I'm listening carefully to what everything is being said. But we we have I see us and I understand what you are talking about, the growth and development. I've been here all my life, except for 15 years. I stayed right in Leesville and Batesburg. In Leesville, not Batesburg. And I do know that there is growth. There are changes. And if we are... We'd like to continue to have a quote unquote small town community, which I know that's not a consensus of a lot of people on this committee. We will need to look at what all we're doing with the shoestring and annex and all these different people, places in. I don't know if you all been up there off of that Cedar Grove and back out there, Devil's Backbone. It's a lot of property for sale. It's a lot of signs up with portions for sale and new development. So, yes, it's happening. But we, as someone said earlier, it looks as if we are becoming a Lexington and Irmo because it's going to take away the small town community that we once knew where we didn't have the compromise about the integrities of our community. And that's my thought on the incident, the entire incident.

Everybody's good thoughts. I want to just remind everybody we have impact fees currently in place. We're going to talk about them in a few minutes. Impact fees can only be. Used for specific items that have been previously identified in the capital improvement plan. We're talking about capital improvement plan and potential ways to use those. revenues from the cap from the impact fee collections so 4.2 wastewater collection this will go faster y'all item one is skater that's just how we can monitor it make sure it's working it'll alert us if it is not working we're we're working toward getting skater on all of our sewer pump stations Matter of fact, we already have it on some. Now, the rest of that page and the majority of the next page are talking about specific pump stations. We've got about 12 of them in town. We've identified all of them as needing some work. They're tired, and they need some help, and Also, some of them are tied to some potential growth. So I don't want to get bogged down on those. Those are all a sewer pump station, as I mentioned to you all before. So it either flows downhill naturally. Gravitationally, or you have to pump it over the hill. These pump stations pump it over the hill until it reaches a point on the other side of the hill where it can flow gravitationally to where it needs to go. So these pump stations are all over town. I believe all of these are within the town limits.

Excuse me, is there a pump station on Sheila Road? Down by Duncan Creek?

Yes, that's the J.B. Martin.

It's not on this list. That's actually a metering station. That's where we meter the flow from J.B. Martin.

Okay.

It's gravitationally flowed, but it's metered for J.B. Martin. So there is technically not any pumps there.

Okay. I didn't even know it was down in the bottom of the hill. What made me think that it was a pump station. It was down in the bottom.

The Greg Street Station? Yes, sir. That's the back way to J.B. Martin. How far out is that pump station?

I'm not real good with these roads yet, Mr. Bob. Jay can certainly tell me. It's basically middle ways of that pond there.

Yeah, so if you're going out Brody Road off of Southley, turn left on Brody, you'll go out of town and kind of back up to the left is a pond. It is located on that north side of the pond, on the pond branch side. Our crews access it off of Gregg Street, which is a dirt road that goes from Brody over towards... Throw that, please. They go in through a sewer.

Greg Street cuts across from Lee to Fond Branch or East Avenue, whatever you want to call it.

Yes.

And so that's not.

Yeah. So that one is along that. There's a sewer right away that runs along that bottom of Greg Street.

And those are represented also on a figure one, but it looks different. They are on over in the wastewater section. It's green with a bunch of red squares. Your pump stations are noted on there. I don't right off see a page on it, but their locations are relatively accurate. Mr. Spradley, do you have a page?

It's in the cost estimate section, if that helps. Yeah, there's a figure one that...

Those are our 12 existing pump stations. Like I said, they're tired. The pumps are tired. The wiring is tired. They just need some little TLC. All of those basically are listed there. I'm on page 8, three-fourths of the way down is where I am now. a couple of little things that are listed on there is we call it the salute Avenue sewer consolidation. If y'all notice on that map, or if you didn't notice there multiple out salute Avenue, um, as you go out of town toward the County line three or four out there, there's a thought that we would love to consolidate those into one larger, uh, pump station. Some of them are, uh, in desperate need of looking at now.

Some of these are upgrades, except for the two new stations, Bethlehem and Saluda Avenue.

That's correct.

But we're adding two new stations.

Well, if the Saluda Avenue happened, we would be adding one and then hopefully would be taking three or four of those. offline basically and then consolidating that flow into one that's a that's a little bit further down the road than i've looked really exactly what that would look like but that is a potential project that we'd like to look at further that's right We're just calling it Slute Avenue Pump Station. Those three.

Combined into one?

Yes.

Kester, Higgins, Kevin. Those three would essentially be.

And there's a chance that we could get that over to, I believe, what's listed on y'all, the North Plant. We call North Plant Alexander. So they could possibly go over there. We have not gotten very far with that project. Do you know that? Well, y'all don't see I've got it. That's that's a long term project, which is something that we see as farther than 10 years from here, but is noted on there. The Bethlehem road pump station and force main. That is. Something that I have identified that I think is crucial. It would be in the vicinity of 391 and Bethlehem Road. And right now our sewer just gravity flows along Davis Pond, but we're limited. That flow is limited because there's not a whole lot of slope or fall or gravitational activity. slope on that line so our flow going into the headworks of the of the wastewater facility are somewhat limited by the lack of slope of line along davis pond this pump station would potentially alleviate that problem and allow more sewer to to get to the headworks of of the wastewater plant so that's what that project there is talking about the bethlehem road And it's, again, listed as long-term. We had to put it somewhere. I think if it was done tomorrow, it would be great. But I think the beyond 10 years is a pretty realistic slot for that. And again, like I said, we can argue to well beyond the over-under that we have for tonight on where things should technically be located in the long, short, and intermediate, but we put them where we thought they best fit. The wastewater treatment section 4.3 on page 9 lists various items that need to be looked at at the wastewater plant. Now, I don't want to get too far off track here. The North for y'all aware of that. And it's going to be a great thing when it happens, but it hadn't happened yet. So we had to at least look at what the future might be. If that North for project is delayed. However long that's what this page is is looking at as well as some. Improvements we could do if nor for came along.

Is that the same deal? They want to use our sewer? What's the delay on that? They're still talking about using our sewer.

The North Fork, well, the council approved for that to happen. That North Fork project is dependent on multiple things. One, water getting to it, sewer getting out of it, and finding a suitor for the property. So all that is in the works.

There's just kind of – And I believe the engineering so far is about 40% complete. Is that my understanding from Thomas and Hutton for the sewer upgrades?

Mm-hmm.

So work is being done. If you ride by the site, you'll see the entrance has been cut. They are making progress, but there's not a hard timeline on that, but they are engineering, doing the engineering work. And it is moving forward, but as Andrew mentioned, yeah, there's a lot of money that's got to be acquired. They're working with the state on that, but Aiken County is diligently working on that.

I hadn't even thought about that project in forever. Now, so with the loops that we're doing outside of town, we're definitely not going to be taking their sewer, right?

Definitely not going to be taking what sewer?

You're talking about off the new loop? Yeah, if it's new water lines coming off the loop, we're definitely not taking their sewer then, right?

It would be very... Complex for us to take sewer from the lake. So, but I mean, I don't want to say no. Because, I mean, there might be something just outside the town limits that. Would be a lot more entertaining for for taking that super.

Okay. So while we're entertaining that, we also. Understanding that we may have be obligated. To provide these people at Norfolk. Sue as well, right?

No, when they, I'm sorry, I interrupted Mr.

I'm sorry, not as I saw the contract at the binding agreement. It is open as usual. It's an open ended agreement, which does not have a time limit. Or any other restrictions where we could reasonably withdraw.

We can withdraw from that from that agreement.

That's a legal question. I slept that day in law school.

Well, you just said it. So I'm just trying to figure out all I'm trying to figure out is if do we, we not stretch ourselves too thin. To be thinking that we can take sewer. Low hanging developments. And also provide sewer to a county according to the contract.

If I may interject again? Yes, sir. So North Fork will not send us wastewater until those improvements are completed. The sewer line, the sewer plant improvements to get it to 4 million gallons a day would be done simultaneously. So they will not put any burden on our existing capacity for that wastewater plant we are constantly having those conversations about a creekside ridge or someone in growth where we are using our existing capacity but but north fork will not cut into that 2.5 million capacity that we have we also have to keep in mind that as we take in new sewer customers that at some point

We're going to have to deal with the Norfolk contract, right?

And that is absolutely a good thing. That is a great thing whenever they get it built because we will gain additional capacity at our plant. We are permitted for 2.5 million but are not currently capable of treating 2.5 million gallons. They will get us to the 4 million gallon mark, which will give us some additional capacity that we already are permitted for but not built out for. So we will gain some capacity. Wait. Will we gain? Go ahead.

Go ahead. Is there also part of that agreement that they will permit us for an additional two?

So, yeah, the permitting process, I believe, is 5 million gallons. I think it's for 1 million.

So we're currently operating our plant at what capacity?

Just just say 1.1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1. Or the allocation shouldn't we are we are permitted to release 2.5. We are not constructed to handle that we constructed for. Well, it was constructed. I don't know, but we can handle 1.25. I don't know if there is a number. What is my tractor built to pull? I can't specifically say what is built to pull. we are permitted to 2.5 but based on historical knowledge of years of of miss angie being down there we can't handle that we can handle 1.25 we can handle more than that but we can't handle 2.5 on a regular basis now so so the councilman has a valid point possible that we could outrun our

And at what point it's only a certain point where requires you to expand. Like, you can't run out at 100%. I think once you get to 40, maybe 60%, they require you to to expand. Right.

I don't think it's 40 or 60%. I'm not positive of that. The lady behind me may know that number. I think she did. Okay.

90%. Okay. So, I mean, we.

That's a very valid point, but I will, I will mention this to y'all. Every. Development that comes. To anybody's attention in this town. has to be approved that we can provide water and we can accept their sewer. If somebody, this has not happened, don't create a rumor. If a development called me tomorrow and said, hey, I want to put 3,000 houses over there on such and such street, I would have to say, can I handle it? And I would have to look at those sewer capacities and flows, and I can say, no, we can't handle it. Same with water. So they don't just come in and say, hey, we're building 2,000 houses. Hope y'all can figure out where to put the sewer.

We would hope not. But we would also, my only point, again, is that when we say we're going to build off these lines, that we have to consider that we do have a limited sewer facility. capacity and even if they expand our sewer capacity, at some point, it's not infinite. At some point, we're going to reach that 90 percent point of flow and we're not going to be able to, because all that stuff is going down to Orangeburg and Charleston and the Edisto River. We're going to reach a point where it's not unlimited. That's all I'm saying.

Right. You're 100% correct. There is a point where it's not unlimited, and that's part of, I believe, my job to evaluate every request. I don't evaluate the one house. But the housing developments, I think it's part of my responsibility to evaluate to see if we can handle that request and then present to you all things that I think need to happen next. in order for us to be able to put ourselves in a position to handle that request. And that's what the last item we talked about, the lack of gradient slope there at Davis Pond.

And DES will get involved too.

DES will get involved with wastewater way faster than a lot of people may want them to be involved. So you have to really mind your P's and Q's.

They watch soil. Really? And they monitor it. There's a thing called checkbook.

It's what we're loosening on is checkbook. They've got a list of every permitted sewer entrant. You know, sewer... producer in the town. They've got a total. I mean, it's there, and they keep up with us, a running total, and they keep up with the capacity that's there. If there's only five gallons of capacity and I write them a letter saying, hey, we want to give this house in development 10 gallons of capacity, they go, you ain't got it. We're keeping up with it. So they do monitor it very well. Yes, sir.

Perfect example. you have two options. The easiest option was going to be go to the sewer processing plant over behind Sunday News all the time about releasing raw sewage, having a spill under Broad River. That was going to be easy for him because he can get the creek running sewer line down there.

Just for clarity, that is an Irmo, not in Batesville, Cleveland.

Well, anyway, DES said, nope, that plant can't accept anything else. We're not allowing anything else. So they had to go back and re-engineer the whole project so they could send it onto the railroad track to Richland County's plant, which is huge on Broad River. But they sent it from one river to the other. They had to change the whole I went from a gravity system to a pump system. Just because the yes and no, not going to happen. So they watch it and watch it.

Well, I want to now bring up my Chevrolet, Ron from GHD. She is the group that we, the town council approved to do the capital improvement plan and impact fee. Michelle, we, we talked she, uh, We joked outside, you can't get to her house from here. She lives on the other side of the lake and north of there. So I told her we wouldn't keep her out too late at night. So if y'all would, she's going to be available if you have any questions on how we derive at the numbers of the impact fee. If y'all would give her some questions, if you would allow us a few minutes. We'll let her get on the road and then we'll take maybe a short break and then we'll wrap up pretty quick. So, Michelle, but you holler, whatever you need me to do and Shelby work with Craig. They tag team this project. Okay. Craig Craig couldn't be here tonight and Michelle was here with Michelle. It's been a great asset. Thank you. So. Tell whatever you need to say is a lot of capitalism tree and I was asleep in that class. I didn't pay. I was asleep. But if y'all got any questions on. The specific, you know, how we got to the numbers, those would be where Michelle would be. Go ahead, Michelle.

Well, I was going to say, I mean, the way these were calculated was the same way they were calculated back in, was it 2004? Whenever that, you know, they were done previously. So we use the same methodology this go round. So that hasn't changed if y'all were familiar with how we came up with them before. But we got... two parts to it we've got the equity part where we looked at like we were talking about future growth you want them to help pay you know for their growth so all your existing customers we looked at equity in the system um and divided that out by like your wastewater plants 2.5 mgd um 300 gallons per day per households what des considers um typical flow came up with how many households that would serve and came up with your equity number looking at the depreciation for each system. And then we also have that capital improvements portion of it as well, which includes some of the projects that we just went over, just looked at the short term section of projects. And we combine those two numbers to come up with your updated impact fee. I think y'all might have some tables that kind of show where the proposed fee and your existing fee lie compared to some other neighboring utilities as well, just to kind of give you an idea.

If I may, the bottom line is that The proposal is for us to increase the impact fee for water and sewer from about $1,300, $1,400 to approximately $5,000. So that is a fourfold, three and a half, fourfold increase per se. So that is what it boils down to, increasing 12 1400 1300 i guess 14 that you said impact fees total for a three quarters 11 43 and now we're going to 48 49 hundred dollars so that's and those fees would be effective when

If I'm not mistaken, that would require two votes as an ordinance. So, you know, I believe that at the point that the ordinance is approved, they would go into effect.

So that could impact, that could be impact the, have any permits been pulled for?

No, no impact fees have been paid on Creekside Ridge.

Permits been pulled or they pull a permit before we approve this, they would pay.

If they did that prior to the full implementation of the ordinance, yes, they would be paying the current rate. That has been one of the driving factors in getting this done was to try to get ahead of all of the construction so that we would maximize it. Obviously, there are several months before this would be implemented. My intention is not for this I'm looking at October, not September.

Why, if you may ask? I mean, we could do this in three weeks.

Yes, you could.

We could do this in three weeks. I'm just very discouraged at the momentum that... Our government seems to react.

Well, would you like me to explain? Yeah.

I'm sorry.

Yeah. So you asked questions. For September, as I sent out on Thursday, we'd also put out for general fund impact fees. And so I felt that it would be prudent for us to have a discussion of what the potential impact of general fund impact fees and the utility impact fees would look like. So we could give you time to chew on this over the next four weeks and come back in september as i hope we will discuss the general fund impact fees and vote on hiring a company to do the exact same thing the ghd did for the utility side to do for the general fund side because i think when we're talking about what that number looks like for a new home builder or for a subdivision we're looking at both of those numbers not just the nearly 5 000 that is in this proposal but potentially several thousand on the general fund side. So I think it's prudent for council to have that discussion and at least have some concept of what it would look like as an end product instead of trying to rush it. Reality is, I think you also need to look at these numbers and see what you feel is the comfortable number. Do we want to go 100%? Or does council want to look at the affordability issues that they considered in 2004? They also looked at the concern then was they didn't want to throttle the growth or they wanted to encourage growth while still getting some impact fees. That concern may not be the case now, but I think it's fair for y'all to take time to review this document. This is 58 pages. There's a lot there to digest. I don't think rushing it is the right thing to do.

Well, I understand that state law mandates a process for us to implement an impact fee. Is there a restriction on us reducing an impact fee at a later date?

That is council's purview. You can reduce it. You can eliminate it down the line. It's not a one and done. Council has that purview.

Basically, we could implement this and when the number came back in for the general fund impact fee, we could say this is going to be a restrictive situation. Let's balance the two and I'd like to go with more money in the general fund impact fee and reduce this. I'm just looking at the fact that as construction goes on, the town is losing revenue.

That is potential. You were correct in that.

It's not a potential. It's a reality.

No permits have been pulled for that construction yet on the subdivision.

We refuse to issue a permit.

No, sir, we have not refused any permits. They have not reached the point of paying impact fees. What they want is the developer, as they build those houses, to pay the impact fees at that time. So the developer is putting that on the builder down the line.

Well, what my constituents express their concern is that sometimes our government seems to move at a pace that would make a snail look like a roadrunner.

Well, and there are reasons for that, so that people do have a chance to review the documents.

I fail to understand all of them, but I'm an old man and I'm...

Well, I think sometimes, and I think we have seen that in some other aspects, where rushing to a decision leads to us going right back to fix that decision. I think it is prudent for council to take an extra month to read this 58-page document that you got emailed on Friday and are looking at really for the first time. I don't think it's unreasonable for y'all to take time to chew on it and truly understand it. Again... I'm not telling you how to vote on this. I just want you to make an informed decision that is the best for the town. Financially, absolutely, 100% would be great to have that additional capital money that is there for these projects. Same thing on the general fund side. From a budgetary standpoint, from our side, 100% do that. But... That's not your job is just to maximize. You have to make that decision of what is best for the community. And 22 years ago, council looked at the affordability issue. I believe Councilman Cain can speak to that. That that was a big concern from several of the council members was Do we want to price out new home construction for more of the lower income? If we have that number, say $5,000 is the number, $5,000 on an affordable home is a much bigger percentage than on a $300,000 or $400,000 home. So there was the affordability issue in 2004, and I think that is as prevalent now as it is 22 years ago, or was 22 years ago. Again, council has to make that decision, and I don't feel comfortable rushing y'all to make that decision on September 14th with a first reading, and then you mentioned three weeks. That would require a special council meeting to get that rushed through. There is proper public notice that has to be done, so I don't think you can pull that off efficiently without getting stuff in the newspaper 15 days in advance. My goal was to revisit this in September at the work session and then have this on the agenda for October. If the mayor tells me that y'all want to push through an ordinance in September and then second read in October, we can do that. But I'm trying to be a little cautious here just to make sure we do it right the first time. I'll step off my little soap.

I'd like to say, and I will let Ms. Shelby stay here. I didn't know what dates y'all were going to look at, Ms. Shelby didn't know what dates y'all were going to look at. Ms. Shelby made herself available. Thank her very much for making herself available to answer questions about how we got to the number. If I could ask if we try to hold the conversation now to questions for her addressing the numbers. I'll stand up here and talk as long as y'all want me to about when we want to revisit it. But do y'all have any. Questions about how we got to the numbers, because we can't promise that Michelle B or Craig is going to be available at the next discussion we have on this. So.

One question I'd like to ask, is this representative to other towns or other municipalities, these fees? Is that representative pretty much as averaged? I was going to say, there should be some tables that have some comparatives. We got it, but the people watching don't have it, so we need to talk about it.

Okay, so I can talk about it.

All right.

Water impact fee, three quarter inch meter, $3,151. Those numbers were represented on there. You can see each incremental size that the meter goes up, the impact fee goes up as well. all meters over three inch are case by case calculations. So in front of you, the mayor mentioned a good point to have on the general public's ability to see. On this list provided were eight water providers fees. That was just the readily available information I had. Eight different providers, they were scattered throughout the state. One of them had a $200 impact fee on water. Coincidentally, they were the furthest water provider from us. I don't know if that's relevant. I just noticed it. All others were $750 to $3,150. That's a broad range. But as you see there, looking at those providers, I believe you can tell that the people with the higher impact fees are quite likely the people that are seeing rapid growth. Remember, we've talked about the capital impact plan, a capital improvement plan, projects that were needed to accommodate growth and impact fees are tied to growth. So I think your higher impact fees could likely be tied based on what I see here to areas of growth.

We can differentiate.

Well, impact fees will not affect out of town.

They do. We get impact fees. If they are a water customer, they pay that. A water or sewer customer.

So they actually pay an impact fee out of town, right? Yes, sir. I stand corrected?

Yes, sir. So those are your water fees. And again, they're in your 58-page report there. With the exception of joint mutual...

border system. I don't know what LCWSC is, but with the exception of joint mutual, these are not cities that we are competing with. What about Aiken? What about Saluda? What about other areas that immediately impact this area. These are, I mean, Bishopville, we have no relationship to Bishopville.

Right. So these are what were provided for me, and I will make you guys understand or make you aware, no one is required to have an impact fee set. They're different approaches. Some people I have heard say they don't want those funds to be strictly allocated for a particular project so they in theory may raise their tap fee to a higher cost and then not necessarily bound by spending it in certain ways so everyone does not have an impact fee uh without Looking at those right around us, I couldn't comment on who does and who doesn't. Do you?

I can look them up and see. I can get that information.

Okay. So we can provide immediate.

For those paying an impact fee and a FAP fee. Who? Whoever. Each house on a three-quarter. If you get a three-quarter meter, they're going to pay an impact fee, a proposed, if we go with this proposal. They'll pay the 3151 plus our customers.

Yeah. And they're currently doing that. They're currently paying a tap fee plus impact.

Yes, sir. That's going to be a big chunk of money. But, you know, it's necessary.

Well, the tap fee is, I mean, that's our expense. Basically, they're the impact fee. You know, we've talked about it quite enough. I think you all understand what it covers.

I suspect that we did this. It probably was so good for them.

For a tap?

Just for the impact? Just for the impact? Just looking at what City of Akins got on, you know, just Googling. $750 for the tap for the impact fee for residential water. Just an example.

Do you see their tap fee?

Tap fee looks like, I can't tell if it's $13.35 or $26.70 or whatever it is.

What's our tap?

Our tap fee in town right now is $1,500 for a three-quarter water tap in town. In the town limits of Batesburg-Leesville, our water tap is $1,500.

That's based on three-quarter inch and one-inch tap.

Right. I mean, your impact fees are derived from your capital improvement plan. If someone were looking at our impact fees right now and comparing them, they would say, golly, Batesburg-Leesville is $500 and $700. Well, that's because our plan's 20 years old. I don't have any idea how old the plans in front of you are. Those guys may have 20-year-old plans as well. And their, their council may have voted to cut them in half or cut them by 3 force. Castleman hall made a valid point. It is it is a substantial increase. It is sticker shot, but keep in mind the sticker shock has been. Greater because the council cut it in half last time. Well. That's correct, because the capital improvement plan that we discussed, the water project's much more pricier than the sewer projects. Absolutely.

Unless I'm mistaken, if I may, the $1,293 that were imposed in 2004 And the dollar value today would be $2,283. So, therefore, for us to even maintain a buying power for our projects, we would immediately have to increase it to $2,283, where we are currently looking at $4,000.

Councilman Hall, can you – that number you gave me, 12 – 93. Is that a combination of 571 and 722? I believe so, if my math is correct. Okay. So you came up with 12, whatever it was. And again, I want to reiterate, that was cut in half. And that was where the town derived when the fees were cut in half. No. No.

Yeah, this is one half. Okay, I'm sorry. Yeah, it is one half of the 2583 would have been the original in 2004. Absolutely. We do not want to throttle growth, but we want to actually not lose money on it.

Yes, Bradley, you had a question. I was just going to say, do we have any more questions for Ms. Shelburne? Ms. Shelburne, anything you want to say?

I was going to ask, because I didn't look at exactly your formula, can you look at what the cost of the house prices are? We didn't include that.

Thank you.

Any more questions for Ms. Shelburne?

If you guys want to take a couple minutes, stretch your legs.

I think we're probably about a third of the way through with all my slides. So if y'all want to go on, take a break for a minute. time. The mayor wants two council meetings a month. I agree. He wants work sessions. And by the way, council needs to schedule work sessions with our agenda, with our agenda, with our agenda. All right.

That doesn't take six weeks.

There's three. What do you think?

About what?

I mean, why would he? Let's get her done.

Well, you know, I worked in the water utility before moving on, so I think it's okay.

JUST FOR YOU AND I.

If you don't have a second.

IT WOULDN'T HURT MY FEELINGS. Whether we want to just go ahead and vote on it.

Then we wouldn't be restricted on how you use the month. That's the way you understand it, right?

BUT THERE'S A NEIGHBORING, A VERY CLOSE PROVIDER.

It's 22 years. And it's 22 years. Yeah, so we're right there at the same, pretty much the same number. With the price of the houses.

What's our tap fees again? I wrote it down. That's right. Yeah. Which is most of them.

Okay.

Thank you.

It's going to take us six weeks to decide whether or not to implement it and whether or not to go 50%, 75% or 100%. It's going to take that long.

Mentality. It's his mentality. Cricket. Cricket.

Who's our caterer? Who's our caterer?

It's the, I will do anything to avoid being wrong.

Somebody's trying to keep us awake or something.

that went for all the last three weeks in a history class. We covered three chapters in the last three weeks, we covered 25. So I'd like to see you. Well, they told me today that I didn't have to learn so much history because when I was in school, it was still being written.

So we will get it back rolling. I'm gonna go ahead and swap slides on y'all. So here again, wastewater impact fees, I've already seen them. We've already talked about them. They are noticeably lower at that value. My same notes there, eight sewer providers were given four or three quarter water, the wastewater impact fee based on a three quarter water meter. One was 400 to 580. That was depending on the in-town, out-of-town, furthest location. Kind of followed the same trend. 1,750 to 3,937, broad range. Again, I think is tied quite possibly to growth. We'll move on, unless y'all want me to slow down. All right. Water plant decommissioning, phase three of the water project. Y'all can read the slide. I'll hit the highlights. Phase one was the water line coming down number one to the tank. That was joint portion of it. Then the tank to here was our portion of it. A 24-inch line came from joint down number one to Oldfield. The million-gallon tank was constructed. We have a contract with them for a million and a half gallons a day, and the town put in 21,000 plus or minus feet of 16-inch water line to town. That ties in over around Holly's Alignment. Starbucks. Yeah, and then cuts through the dirt road and comes right there at Starbucks, Francis Street. So in December, we shut down our water plant. Y'all all know that. We've been a joint municipal wholesale customer since. Phase two was from the water tank out Cedar Grove Road to the section I showed y'all circled earlier where the old connection to Gilbert Summit was. That was phase two. So now... those uh the water is being fed out there gilbert summit they've gotten that capacity back that they used to be giving us and they were pretty excited about that they were a great partner for a long time and and we appreciate everything they did but they're happy to they're happy to have that water back for their growth As you see there, that phase two was a separate bid and was built after phase one was completed. Phase two, being the feed out to the lake, went live January 2026. It was about 40 days, 45 days after phase one went live, we put phase two live. Phase three was the water plant decommissioning. Part of the agreement of the funding with the skip, a $10 million grant, was the decommissioning of the water plant. Additionally, the contract with joint municipal calls for the town not to utilize an alternate water supply, including the town's existing water supply facilities. The goal of decommissioning is to ensure that the town does not produce treated water. The proposal you're fixing to see will exceed the minimum requirements. The Brody Pump Station, this is down on at the end of Brody Road, which Brody, y'all are familiar with Brody, goes out past the schools where it intersects Two Notch Road. That pump station you see in that picture is just downstream of the intersection of Two Notch and Brody, right below Brody Pond. that pump station you see was in the creek it would pump water up to the town pond so part of the decommissioning was those turbine water pumps be to move we do think that there will be some value in them on some type of uh site lawful site we could use or dispose of them The flow meter is going to be removed, possible resale value. That building you see, which is very small, that building is probably – well, you see the white door there is probably a 36-inch door, so I'm saying that building is probably 8-foot square roughly and 15-foot tall. We'll demolish and remove all mechanical equipment as well as the building. The electrical service will be disconnected. All the piping will be – basically cut down to grade so that will be just a grassed area when when the decommission project is completed questions there the flow meter could it be used for portable water

The question is, obviously, and again, our experience with leaks on the water system number two, and that system is no longer metered. So what do we have in place that would give us a reasonable early detection of if we metered that section two, or system number two? Could that meter be used, flow meter be used,

meter that system the short answer is that i don't know okay but that uh being raw water that that i have a thought but i don't want to say that thought i will get an answer to that question all right would appreciate it yes sir the other one is we would sell the property

That's certainly an option. That is not part of what we're discussing tonight. We do have pipe that are on that grounds. The discussion that we've had internally is the – I think it is a – what's the size pipe? Is it a 10-inch pipe?

That's a 16 going down.

So there's a 16 inch line that goes from that station all the way back to the town pond. So there is potential for that to be cleaned. It would have to be cleaned and utilized for another water main if we so desire. That is one option. There will probably need to be a few extra things that aren't included in this to make it where we could sell it, but that is certainly an option. We do not have a need for it from a water supply issue anymore. Now, Andrew may want a wastewater plant down there, but that's another story altogether.

Well, it just depends on if y'all want to stay past 11 o'clock or not, so we'll talk about that. Okay, but...

All right. So we will be looking at whether or not the line could be cleaned and would have a potential to be a portable order line and also whether or not we could use the flow meter to system two. System two just bothers me. In fact, it could run up a very large bill in a very short period of time.

That is true.

And could also force us into a relook at our obligation from joint mutual. It could spike for five days.

I will get an answer to your question as far as the water line. That possibility is there.

And I have to put the baby to bed. So we move.

Sometimes I really wish we weren't on live because I would love to set something there. Go free. And I'm available after the meeting. Town Pond Raw Water Pump Station. Okay, so this is at the town pond. The Brody Pump Station pumped it to the town pond. There's a pump at the town pond that pumped it up to the water plant. So that decommissioning down there, the existing raw water pump station building is salvageable and will not be torn down. I'll show you more on it later. Chemical feed building is to be demolished and removed along with chemicals. There is one structure there that is portable that will likely be put up for a bid on probably a lawful site. Demolish and remove the old pump building. That's not talking about the new one, the old one, which is almost removed now. Remove the building from the electrical grid at service, permanently isolate the pump station piping, and raw water pumps will be returned to us for salvage and potential resale. There is a generator down there and a transfer switch, and that will likely be removed and salvaged and will most likely be reused in a different place we will get to in a minute. Questions there?

Did they ever say why they wanted us to be commissioned on that stuff? If you already buy water from them, why don't they care whether we have...

So I think part of that was from DES. I think they had... Why would they care? Well, they care about the water and they care about the qualities of the water and the water supply and the raw water supply. Well, there was certain... Yeah, certain items were initially mentioned to DES and the funding organization. Here's what we're going to do if y'all give us the loan or you approve this. And they were part of a proposed...

Well, I may interject a little bit. So as Andrew mentioned at the very beginning, some of these things do exceed what is expected. Do we need to tear down the old chemical building? No. Andrew's going to get to it in a minute. We've got $437,000 of SRF funding. So we have... We were originally told we would not get any grant funding for this project, but we've been able to get them to give us some SRF funding. We didn't utilize all of it on Phase 1 and Phase 2. Those came in under projections. So they have approved $437,000 towards that. So with the 75-25 match... that would make it where it's gotta be 588,000 to get that maximum money. So what our goal is, is to remove as much of the old, unusable, derelict type buildings and clean up that property. The building that we have mentioned that we're gonna keep, which Andrew will show you in just a second, and was discussed during the high hazard dam discussion, is a good building, it's usable, it could have a repurpose. If you've seen these chemical buildings, the chemicals have done a number on them through the years. So they're beyond reasonable repair. So, yes, some of these things do exceed what the expectation is. But this is the proposal that we've got together for you tonight, which is spelled out in that handout.

Thank you, Jay. Okay. Okay. Continuation here's the, here's the building that we just reference. This is a metal structure. You're seeing the exterior and the interior of the structure. I apologize. I don't have measurements on it, but if I had to guess, I would say that it is probably 15 by 25. Pretty sound structure. Of course, you see inside the piping, the pumping and stuff that's no longer used, and those pumps will be returned to us available for sale. That building certainly could be repurposed.

Relocated or just simply repurposed?

Relocating that building is going to be a little bit of a challenge because concrete was poured inside after the building was set in place. So some of the bottom portions of that structure are bound by concrete.

Okay. But it would be a plus selling feature if we sell the town fine property.

Quite possibly. All right. So now we're moving to the water plant. demolish and remove the rapid mix and mechanical equipment. That's, that's, uh, Stuff that's not really exciting to y'all or me, honestly. It's just kind of part of the mechanical process. Flocculator, equipment, and drives, same thing. It's basically what makes it be a water plant. Chlorine, mechanical equipment, chlorine was used to disinfect water. Those first three are just some minor parts and equipment. Demolish the sediment basins at ground level and basin floor. We'll fill the basins to ground level with approved fill material. Okay. Demolish and remove the high-service pumps pulling water from the older clear wells. I'll talk about that in a second. Demolish clear wells. There are three in total. You have to demolish them to two foot below ground level. Core the basins so moisture can move in and out, whatever it may be, and fill to ground level with approved material. And also demolish and remove the sludge solids handling equipment. All right, now, water plant. These are the structures. Your purple arrows, there are three of them. They're kind of right in the dead center, two right on top of each other, one in the bottom. Purple arrows, those round, those are the clear wells that they're pointing to. About probably two and a half feet of that structure is above ground and probably about 11 feet is below ground. Those are the clear wells mentioned. Those would be demolished, cored, and filled with approved materials. So those three areas would be returned to earth, grassed over, whatever you might say. The black arrow, can't miss it, which is showing an area outlined with a red box. That's the filter in the sedimentation basins and the chemical building. The chemical building is the gray square in the bottom right corner. Those will be demolished and done the same way, below ground level, holes cored in them, filled to ground level with approved material.

The orange era.

That's right.

Wow.

The orange era is what we call a lamella basin. It's basically where some sediment and some backwash went and then was pumped out of there down to the sewer plant. That structure is, I've measured it before, I can't remember, probably about 50 by 60. So that will be, four-sided structure will be removed as well. And then the blue, or the yellow era is outlined in blue. There are three of them. They're pointing to just, like it says, various in-ground vault pits that'll be demoed and filled. So the whole area with the yellow arrows and the purple arrows up at the top, that'll be grassed over essentially. And the bottom purple arrow in the orange area will be grassed over as well.

And if I may, the expectation is that the clear wells, we would not build structures on those fill areas. The other two areas would essentially be eligible to be built on. They would not have a significant fill, but those clear wells being 11 foot deep, we would probably at most have a driveway that goes over those.

We're going to use the material from demolishing the filter and sedimentation basins to fill the clear wells?

Yes, sir.

Okay, so there would not be a large-scale removal of material to be dumped in?

The only thing they talked about removing was the metal for salvage.

No, you're good. Thank you.

I hear the baby crying.

All right. Rural Infrastructure Authority and the State Revolving Fund have approved this as a change order addition to the original awarding of Phase 1. That was awarded to DS Utilities. This allows us to move forward with DS Utilities, who constructed Phase 1 and 2 for the demolition project. State Revolving Funds approved $437,224. Jay just mentioned that to y'all. They have approved that funding available for us. As Jay mentioned, we originally told we weren't going to have any money. However, good luck fell upon us and we have $437,000 and some change to go toward the project. Yes, ma'am. Cost breakdown. Phase 3 estimated cost $689,000 and some change. The funding available $437,000 and some change will leave us roughly at $250,000. So, the summary of the water project calls phase 1 construction 10.6M phase 2 was 2.7M engineering costs. 1.2M got 10M skip funding and 4.25 and funding. We got 14M dollars there funding.

and it did come in under budget. So we didn't maximize all of that, which certainly led to SRF willing to give that. But just remember, we are a tier one county. So SRF funds are a 75, 25, essentially it's a grant 75, 25 match. So to get that 437,224, I think that total would be about 588. I don't have that number in front of me, but yeah.

Okay, any questions?

all right and and yes sir i'm not sure what the next slide is i don't remember um we're closing that only okay so this is something that we need to move quickly on uh they would like for us to approve this as soon as possible uh so my intent is that we have this on the agenda for september 14th to to vote on this uh the uh objective is to have the project completed by the end of the year if you look in the handout that was on your desk from hazen it kind of gives you a little bit of detail and so feel free to look through that and ask any questions but the goal is for this to be on the agenda for september the 14th with the goal of approving ds utility for this change order and get that paperwork to SRF and move this forward. The money, we have money available in the utility. The LGIP would be where that money would probably come from.

So this project has been vetted?

Again, this is approved by the SRF and the Rural Infrastructure Authority. It's a change order for the first factor. The reality is the SRF funding is the main thing there. We need to do decommissioning. Again, we may not need to tear down everything, but we need to remove the ability to treat the water, the pumps, all of that flocculation equipment, the chemicals of that nature. That has to be completed. If we do not move quickly and SRF pulls that funding back, then it would be 100% on the town to do that. Now, you would be scaling the project back at that time, and you would have some, you know, we may not remove the clear well. We may not do all of that work. But the goal, my goal, and I think Andrew's goal, is to clean up as much of that property as possible. You would see a significant improvement in that property on Liberty Street. And You know, the long term that that property is still going to be used by our water utility or utility maintenance crew. Andrew's office is in the old three story building. You've still got street department fleet department is located on that property. So that property is well used and this would clean it up. Again, we would not build on top of some of those fill areas, but it does give potential for. an expansion. We talked about it a couple months ago that we are in need of some more indoor storage space, be it a pole building or steel structure. So there would be some potential for us to redevelop that property for utility as well as street and fleet departments.

If I may, we...

Uh, and you turned your mic off there, but, um, the, um, y'all can't see the green light. I don't think, uh, as well as we can. Uh, I have not had that specific conversation with SRF, but I know that they are urging it to be done quickly because it needs to be spent by the end of the year. And DS has stated that they can't accomplish that by the end of the year. So a delay would definitely put it in jeopardy. Thank you.

Okay, Mr. Hendricks, I'm going to bring up something that was brought up many times before we got to this juncture with the water system. We talked about the decommissioning of the water plant. The question that came up many times before, which some people laughed, was in case of a natural disaster, what is our backup system?

Well, the water plant as it sits right now is not able to produce water. It has been shut down since December. It's not like a car that you can just go crank it up. It is...

We discussed this last year about the decommissioning, and several times it came up, what would be our backup. And some people thought, oh, we won't need that. It's not necessary. You're putting the cart before the horse. Well, the situation that I saw that we see in the news with Gary and Dan, they needed water. They couldn't flush their toilets. Okay, so that's my question. What will we do in the event of something worse than Helene, something worse than Katrina that hit in Louisiana? What does Batesburg-Leesville have in the package or in the plan for the future, Mr. Hendricks, in case we run into this? And I know we're not God, we're not the Elohim, but there is a possibility. So what will we do? That's my concern.

So there's not a perfect plan, and this is something we probably need to get in writing. We do have agreements with Gilbert Summit. If we had an emergency, we are tied in with Gilbert Summit on that system two line. They could provide some water. We were also tied in with Rich Spring, which gets their water source from Saluda County water and sewer. So where we have provided water to Ridge Spring for many, many years, that line is still there. The valve is off, but it could be open and it could flow the other way. So those are two connections that we have with other agencies that give us some flexibility. Would it still be an emergency? Absolutely, because we would not have the – the pumping capabilities coming from those. So there would be major restrictions, but there would be some potential for those interagencies. Do we have an agreement in place with those for that situation? I would have to look back at some of those contracts as how they are written, but we do have those two connections in place.

I believe these things should be considered in all procedures and processes. And some people may think it's not necessary, but we're not eternal, and we're not the ones who have the final say. So thank you for your answer.

Yes, ma'am. And again, the water plant as is, again, it could not be started up. Andrew, I wouldn't even take a guess at how much... you know, would be involved in trying to start up our plan at this point.

And that really was not something that we thought would be feasible because of the decommissioning back, the process, what was done in December. But yet I needed to ask that question. There are constituents who are watching, who are listening, and they have concerns. And because I'm a citizen of this town, I have divorced their sentiment. Now, it may not refer or apply to any of you, but I live here, too. Absolutely.

It applies to all of us in this room. And I would say that, you know, the water system that we are tied to, that water plant provides water to the majority of Lexington County. So if there's a catastrophic failure at that water plant facility, Blackson County as a whole would be significantly impacted. Needed to hear that spoken.

Yes, ma'am. About two days worth of order. 1,000,000 at 1,000,000 at the old road tank. What do we have in town? We have three times 450.

Well, about 400.

Okay, so we have a million four, and we're using about seven.

Let's say 7.8. So we have two days. Plus the volume in the pipe. I wouldn't be able to guess that very accurately.

Yeah, more likely we would see a pipe issue with the 24-inch before we saw a failure of the ability. My other concern is a legal one. The contract with Joint Mutual says we shall not buy. Order from anyone else do we need to amend that contract? We get into it.

We have a catastrophe. joint municipal is going to be sitting there with their rear end hanging out anyway. They're not going to be worried about it.

That don't answer the question, though. We need to have...

The attorney says that would be a force majeure situation.

A lot of times when you get a natural disaster that destroys things to that extent, a lot of things get changed and called off.

We still need to have some type of agreement in place with Bridge Spring. We're assuming... that we're able to, we need to have, like we have a mutual aid agreement with these different counties for police and fire. We need to have a conversation with Rich Spring to see if this is something that's possible, which is one of the reasons why I always had a problem with total decommission of our water plant and why we would ever do that and why they would want us to do that. But since we've done it, we definitely need to have, are you working with, do you know the mayor over in Rich Spring? Have you talked to him about what it would take?

Well, I have not had any water conversations with him, but I do know him.

Okay. And when we talk about looping water in the water pipes and stuff, this may be something that we need to look at as far as the capital issue. project would be how we can get water from an alternative source like rich spring. As part of the capital because they say you never know what might happen and if we have 2 days were for water. You know I'd like to see Council take a look at staff take a look at how you do that is a part of the capital plan.

problem, if you have that kind of catastrophe that affects that system, odds are every other system is going to be affected somewhat by it. Now, the saluted system, getting water out of Lake Murray. The only thing, if you lose the lake, not only is Lexington County the city of Columbia, They get more out of the late joint and this will get more out of late. They had land bought and. Prepared to build another plan, which is the plan that they, they are actually customers from. Lexington and West Columbia at that point, they don't own that plan. They're going to build, they have bought the land to build their own. The thing that would concern me is where you're going to get water from. If you have a major that that's where you lose electricity. we all up the creek without a paddle.

It depends on what part of the lake is affected.

It wouldn't be part of the lake if it comes down. If you lose the lake, all of these places are going to lose the lake.

The other good thing about having a partnership with Saluda is that Saluda is also tied into a river. Yeah, but that's where that's where the town is going to get their water from. They don't get their water. You know what? The town got their water from Newberry, Newberry county and Newberry county in the lake. No, they were they, they do. Newberry is getting their water from the river.

Might be, but if you lose the lake, if you have a problem. They're back up with that river is it's not going to be down to the flow. I mean, they have to rely on the lake to back the water up before they can draw the water out. We still need to have a backup plan. Not many places have a backup plan, even bigger systems than us.

What are we going to do if we have an issue and it's on the lake?

You pray that it never happens, but it can. I don't know where an alternative source would come from. Because when you get right around to it, everybody around the lake is getting water from the lake.

The lake is huge. So, well, and that was the reason why we should your argument is an argument.

Why we should have kept our, but this conversation is centered around 1 major natural phenomena that we lose the lake. There are other interruptions broken lines. Destroyed pump stations or whatever I mean, but we, we have another choke point and that is saluted county water and sewer. And that's the town of rich brand. So if we were going to try to. Do a capital improvement project to make that available. We would have to go into the town of rich spring and increase. I believe this is experience with rich spring. The truck point is rich frame. Not the line between here and there.

I would think that if. What we're talking about is going to be a moot point. I believe that our contract would jump municipal. There's a, we can't do what you anticipate. I think the attorney, I don't think we can.

Yeah, I think if we get the emergency water supply agreements with the agencies that we are connected to, and again, I think the contract would allow for force majeure, but we could certainly get that contract updated. I'm sure that joint municipal...

There would be no reason for them to refuse.

No.

For an emergency. But I mean, if we do it now and we don't have an emergency, I think they could certainly stop.

Yes. Yeah, this would only be for catastrophic failure. Yeah. So again, I don't think that is really relevant to the discussion of the decommission. Again, the plant is not operational at this time. There is no way to have it be essentially on standby and mothballed and be able to spin it up in a day or two. That's not feasible.

I hear.

Yep, thank you. So any other questions on decommissioning, specifically where we are now on the slides? Anybody got anything? All right. Next one. We'll move along pretty quick, y'all. Wanted to just kind of tell you a quick overview. Our water rates right there, you see them 550 per 1,000 gallons in town, 825 per 1,000 out of town, sewer rate 641 per 1,000 in town, 962 per 1,000 out of town. That's just a repeat there. So 550 is our number that starts off the conversation. That's the water rate inside is 550. Our current rates are that the water outside of town is 150% of the in-town. So if you took 550 multiplied at time 150%, you would come up with the 825. My suggestion is let's continue to use the in-town rate as the base. to derive the other numbers or to arrive at the other numbers. My suggestion is stick with 150%. It's worked for a while. It looks like it's working now. Our previous water rate increases in 2023, it equaled approximately an 11% increase. That was 2023, 11%. I would like for the council to consider a 2% annual increase. 2% is less than most years CPIs. I think you can take the CPI on a state level, maybe a regional, maybe a southeastern regional, maybe a national. I would like to ask you guys to consider a 2% annual increase set in place automatically to adjust on July 1st of each year. Ma'am? All right, so we'll get right to that. Right, so 2% annual increase would raise the outside rates approximately 3% because we already talked about the 150% multiplier out there. 550 times 2% means it would go to 561 in town. 561 would be the new in-town rate times 150%. We'll put it at the 842. So you compare those numbers. 561 would be the new in-town. It used to be 550. 842 would be the new out-of-town. It used to be 825. That's just one year. So I thought that there was something on there, but it's going to be on something else. But yes, ma'am, you asked about that. And I believe you are right. 10 or 11 cent roughly.

Now, there is one component of the average customer's water bill that is missing, and that is the base rate or meter rate. And for clarification, the 2023 price increase was divided between a increase in the base rate and an increase in the per thousand gallon rate. The original proposal as proposed to council at the time was to increase the base rate before rate and we negotiated with Mr. Luckadoo to split it between an increase in the base rate because it would hurt the lower income people while people like McDonald's and other people using their money, using water for profit. So we shared it with a split at that time.

So I believe that I figured on the old rate, which I think was 491, and it went to 550. I believe I had that number right in my head.

Then I'll go back and look at my data. All right.

Okay, but you were correct 491 is the previous rate, but you are also correct that there was a base rate increase. I believe it was scaled back, but yeah, I think you're both correct.

So, on this slide, Councilman Hall, I was not mentioning or not referring to raise the base rate. This is solely just the volume per thousand gallon volume of water.

Each year with that rate going up. Even up to 2% money amount.

Well, 2% next year will be a little bit more than 2% this year. This is a very popular, well-received, done more often, well-received by the providers. And I also think it's... more appealing to a customer. You give them a slight 2% raise every year instead of hitting them with an 11% every once in a while. But this is getting pretty common amongst some utilities. A lot of places or some places follow the CPI.

Well, that's what I think. It's kind of following that.

Yeah.

My thought was put in town at 2%, which we put out of town roughly at 3%, and a lot of times the CPI falls between the two. That's something I would like for the town council to consider. When we look at

the increase in the water bill due to the new meters, because we'll be reading the meters more accurately, right? And then we started looking at 2% here. Eventually, we're going to start looking at some real money that people have to pay. And if we do this 2% annually, It just feeds itself. So we really are sticking it to...

It adds up. I agree.

A tax by any other name is still a tax. So we can say we didn't raise taxes, but we are really sticking it to our folks.

Well, I don't say we're sticking it to our folks because what I want you guys to understand is our cost of producing the product has gone up every year, and we have not countered those.

Well, the cost of our –

parts and equipment, everything, inflation has come up disregarding the cost of, of what we're purchasing water.

But I mean, I thought that's why we did the water project was because, um, producing water was going to be, uh, cheaper.

Well, the cost of maintaining the cost of diesel fuel, the cost of labor, the cost of parts, those parts are increasing on us every year annually. So our, our, uh, Profit to expense ratio, in my opinion, is going down every year because we're paying more for this particular part, but we're still selling the water for the same. So this offsets basically our cost of expenses is how I look at this, 2% annually just to offset the inflation rates, basically.

I thought our expenses and maintenance was going to go down.

I think you also need to, if I may interject, I mean, utility maintenance, those costs, that aging infrastructure that we talked about earlier, those costs have not been decreased. Pipe is more expensive. Fire hydrants are more expensive. I agree with you, but then we're not actually...

You can just be guaranteed that this is going to go up.

We have not seen an increase from them yet, but that will happen. Well, I know, and that's unfortunate. I mean, it's in the contract that they will increase that rate based off of increases that they receive. They're going to pass it along to us, and it's going to calculate in.

Listen, I totally understand that, which is why I wanted us to keep our own water, so that we can control that. Now, since what's done is done, que sera, sera. But when you talk about aging infrastructure, I didn't hear anything in this proposal that addresses aging infrastructure. I mean, I'm all for it. If you put that 2% towards... I keep saying lockbox from 20 years ago, but if you dedicate that 2% to aging, to fixing and repairing, replacing aging infrastructure, that's one thing. Even if you take 1% out of the 2% for that specific purpose, then, yeah, that might make sense. But, you know... We were told that the meters was going to give us an increase in profitability. And on top of that, now we're going to put a 2% increase. Let's earmark that money for things that we need that benefit existing customers. I mean, people that have been here for years.

The 2% basically is my recommendation to help offset our increased

Okay, so what are you going to do with the extra money you get from the meters?

Well, that can also help do what you had just mentioned. The more money that's in this pot is not designated.

So we are going to do an earmark for... infrastructure i don't think i have the authority to say well you're asking us to do to raise 10 you got the authority to at least ask us to do that and to come up with a plan that will allow us to repair the um deteriorating infrastructure in the ground i mean other than that we're going to have more money for the meters, 2% income raises. Are we going to have some extra surplus money? Some of it is going to increase in costs, but then there's some of it that's going to go where? I mean, we're going to find a way to spend it, for sure.

Well, if I may, I mean, we just finished that project that was a block from your house. We did the replacement on Maple Street. We did sewer improvement on South Oak Street, as well as on Peachtree Street.

We certainly appreciate it, and we look forward to the sidewalks. Well, that's October, probably. But what...

So we are constantly looking at those projects and identifying through our utility maintenance crew in areas where they have consistently had problems, main breaks and things of that nature, to do improvements. So those are things that we are working on. They're smaller projects typically because we're not needing to replace a mile. We're needing to place 500 feet or 1,000 feet. So those are areas that we do identify through our utility maintenance and through their records and tracking those problem areas. We know that downtown Batesburg is in major need of repairs. We know that it's 100-plus years old. Sluta Avenue has some water flow issues. Again, I think it's a six-inch. It's got some challenges. The downtown Leesville District is similar as well. So we know that there's aging infrastructure, and we are not neglecting that. Let's lock it in. Let's earmark it. Well, I mean, if that's what council wants to see, so if you want to propose that and say that, you know, that 2% increase, you know, that we're going to. Let's put the difference.

You know, 1% of the increase will go to aging infrastructure. I mean, that's just because if not, we're going to spend it somewhere.

Well, and I think we are being a good steward of the money. I think we are trying to spend that. I don't know exactly how much, but we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Maple Street, South Oak Street, and Peachtree Street recently. Even though we had a CWG grant that paid $300,000, we still had hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs.

But the reason why you had to do that was because we had ignored those chronic problems and patched them for so long.

Well, and I think it's true. I think both things can be true here. They can be. We do patch. They patch all the time. And at a certain point, we get to that priority of, all right, this is now the biggest problem. We need to get that one fixed. We do try to prioritize those issues. We're going to patch the next one that comes up. They patched one at McDonald's last week or two weeks ago. They don't need to go replace 100 feet of pipe. They can make a patch, make that repair. When it becomes a chronic problem, those are those ones we have to address. And so if we're wanting to say that, yeah, we are going to, to use your term, have a lockbox and have, you know, a capital improvement account for aging infrastructure, I don't think Andrew's going to be opposed to that because I'm certain that – I'm trying to figure out ways to make that pot bigger.

That's why I'm – this 2% here.

If I may interject here. I would like a suggestion.

It's 10.05.

Time to wrap it up.

Councilman, that's within the purview of council. We don't need a recommendation to act on that. If you would like to have a work session on that, I'm sure council will be willing to cooperate and And do so.

But we really need to move on.

Decisions made with our condition at this time of night may not be the basis.

And this is not an item we're coming out with an action item on. This is not on the agenda for September, October. This is something Andrew wanted to get in front of you.