Board of Commissioners Agendas and Minutes - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call to order Mayweather County Board of Commission's work session in conjunction with the Mayweather County Water and Sewer Authority. Please stand while the invocation is given by Marwa County Ward and Sue Authority chair chairman Kenneth Murphy followed by the pledge. Let them go in session first for their meeting. Okay. Let them go in first. calling uh work session of Mayweather County Water and Sewage Authority uh to order. Uh you have an agenda here. Like to adopt it. If y'all have any changes, I entertain a motion to adopt the agenda. We have make a motion to adopt the agenda. A motion to have a second. All in favor say I.

I.

Okay, let us pray. Our heavenly father, we thank you for this beautiful day and thank you for all these people that are here together to discuss uh future and the business of Mara County. We ask that you give them the the wisdom and knowledge to make the right decision today for the best of our entire county. We ask that you be with them as they go through this meeting and then travel home and give them safe travels in Jesus Christ's name we do pray. Amen. Amen. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. All right. I'd like a like a motion to adopt our agenda. Any changes to it?

Make a motion to adopt. Second. All in favor? New business. Discussion regarding the water and sewage starts direction on infrastructure development within Mayweather County.

Okay. Thank y'all for having this. uh we wanted to look into the uh future of what direction Mayweather County needs to go with the ward authority and uh if you look at the municipalities within the county um the southern end have a pretty good source of water although Manchester Springs and Woodbury has a source but the northern end of the county is sort of dry uh and we need to get some water up there because Lutherville is basically buying water from us now on emergency situation from the city of where we're buying from the city of Hogensville. So, we're going to present y'all some plans here that we think uh to get them water and get water throughout the county. Um we talked several different sources of points of getting this water and they'll discuss that in in in the drawings and we of our engineer. Um, one of those sources is is from getting it from Woodbury, which Woodbury say is from Lake Marweather. Now, we have a legal question. Is is that Marweather County is already awarded or is that city of Woodbury watered up? We have have to know those I've never been asked.

I can answer that for you. Okay.

Okay. So, Mayweather County owns property. Mayweather County owns the lake, but Mayweather County does not own the water because in the years past, and this is what I've been working on looking into, and I was going to ask y'all today, I discussed it with Commissioner Snelson, but since you went straight off to that right off the bat, I'll go ahead and bring it up. Um, we need either y'all or we'll get John and the county, but we need to get with EPD and apply for a withdrawal permit. Okay? And the reason we need to do that because city of Woodbury has a withdrawal permit. Then they went in there and increased it while Ron was the mayor to 750,000 gallons a day even though they're not using but 150 per day. But the EPD permit they have says 750 750,000 gallons per day is what they're allowed to pull off of there. So um so what we need to find out or the water and sewer authority needs to find out is how much water can be taken from Lake Mary max volume. Example let's say they're getting 750,000 they got they can withdraw 750,000 gallons but they're not doing that. Let's say there's another I don't know 750,000 more or another 10,000 more gallons per day that can be we need to be applying for that permit right now ASAP because if not the city of Woodbury can go and apply the increase again when they're not even using that amount. So if we have that withdrawal permit it doesn't mean you have to use it now. It means once we're issued that it gives us two things. It gives water and sewer authority the availability to know how many gallons that they can pull off that lake for future coming this way and also city decides or somebody decides going to do some kind of major development.

They could be getting all the water from the lake that we're responsible for if that dam was to blow or if the core of engineers said we had to go out there and the county had to do this and do that spend a million dollars on it. City Woodberry is not going to pay for that. That's going to come out of the taxpayers money. And city wood bear is not even having to pay us for the water. So we own the property, we own the lake, they can pull up to 750,000 gallons a day and it's not even no kind of payment to the county. But yet they're the ones that own the water treatment plant for the water. So my suggestion was to be later today since but like I said, you jump right in there for me and open that door. So, uh, I would love to see y'all start applying or get with John, but I would like for us to be pulling applying with EPD for a withdrawal permit from Flint River and a withdrawal permit from Mayweather County Lake.

Okay. So, we we are we are we have discussed with them. We have discussed are having discussions with both Kada and the city of Griffin which they get inside the Flint River to the reservoir in Pike County. Um, so there we John will will explain several different points of where we can get extra water for that northern end part of the county. And uh, so I I'll just brief I'm just want to give y'all brief introduction of what we we're thinking about. I'll turn it over to John and he more give y'all more detail. If I can say one more thing, since we talk about that withdrawal permit, even if we do have sources from other reservoirs or from the county, from here,

we still need to be applying for that withdrawal permit if we don't do them but store it away in the county safe to where you never know where all of a sudden they don't want to give us water. Maybe one day we'll be able to develop our own water treatment plant and build a pool. I totally agree with that. Yes, ma'am. said that Mayweather County that's Mayweather Countyy's property and the Yeah. and we maintain the property and Mayweather uh the uh Mayweather Lake Authority or board you know what type of fish you put in there helps maintain

I don't know you might be able to answer that I think somebody needs to find out the original agreement from when the lake was built and look at it that's first I just know that the county owns the lake but I have no idea what waters draw from I can explain to me the water that in a big lake like that even in any other county that water is like an international water or a national water. So somebody you know if city of Nuna wants to go get a withdrawal permit to pull off a big major lake they can apply with EPD if it's issued to them they can do it. So that's why we need to focus on that. So John with a car sloop. He's our engineer. He'll take it off.

Good afternoon. My name is John. I'm partner consulting engineers. We're doing some engineering work with the water authority. Um they're meeting that two meetings ago. We kind of got into some discussion about this. You know, everybody knows what what issues Lvilles have with their ability to um as they've expanded, added some subdivisions that are outside their municipal area. They've allowed them to t the water system and they don't have enough water available from their wells to produce enough for the demand that's there. So, um we're also assisting them in the short term with that. um you know part of what we looked at without you know in specific so far as what all out so obviously Hoganville's providing water to the county water sewage authority um they've got some heavy demands on their side they've made it known that they're having to look at expanding for the future on their side with Amazon other things there um county and lraange the same way coming back at Green bowl uh in south far south end of the county do have some some springs some available water there. Griffin has Stone Branch Reservoir which is located uh just on the other side of gay on the other side of the river there um which provides most municipalities in Pike County water provides Griffin with water provides uh county to county water and sewage authority with water through their agreement with Griffin. Um, and supposedly, um, I haven't seen the document yet. I requested it, but Mayweather County has part of that as a water purchase agreement with Griffin on the S branch reservoir. Now, obviously, you don't have a minimum buy because otherwise you get a bill like Kawia County Water Authority gets to take a minimum of three million gallons a day. So, it's a take or or pay. So, if they

don't even buy the 3 million and use it, they're still paying Griffin for 3 million gallons of water a day, every day. Uh, I think they've gone a couple times, of course, trying to get out of that and been unsuccessful. But, um, you know, Griffin just sent within the last what, two weeks or so, John, updated updated wholesale water rate uh to the county.

Yeah. 475, 476,000. Um, so growth, as you know, is happening all around y'all. And part of my discussion with with the authority was, well, you know, what are we what are we looking to supply water for? Um, you know, doing all this just math on our end at the end of the day, but what is the demand? What is the appetite for future growth in Merryweather County? And I said that's really a question more for you know the board having that ability. It's one thing to be able to put a bunch of pipe in the ground. It's another thing to be able to produce the water that goes into the pipes. Whether you're either producing it yourself or you're buying it from another misping it. So um you know Kawita County just this is just a rough map. This is not what we're proposing you do. These are options that are out there about just showing how water would be moved around in the northern end of the county from available sources. Uh the one map is just plain over the G dot so it's a little easier to read. The other one is over your current uh comprehensive plan from uh the mapping of your land use your land use from your uh your own current comprehensive plan that goes through I believe 2043 um 2043. Um, so but I've seen plenty of comp plans in the last 30 years that are there because they have to be submitted to the state and nobody follows them and you know for good or for bad. Um, some are rigid to them, some will change zoning like that and it's not really much of a guide. I don't know the answer to that. I don't know that the water and sewage authority knows the answer to that. So I specifically asked them what is the what is the appetite of the elected officials about growth? What are they wanting to see? How are we looking at planning for the future of

Merryweather County as a whole, but very specifically this northern end that has a little less access to to water. Um now I say access to water, they have access to other systems that have water. Uh, you know, we showed two connection points where Kawita County Water and Sewage Authority could provide water. They've indicated that they would be happy to provide water, but I know in my discussions with them, not official necessarily, but they're very much going to be like Griffin in that they're they're not going to want to be a backup source for Lutherville. They're not going to be a backup source for Var County that they connect to you. They're going to want you to use water. There's probably going to be a minimum purchase amount every month that's associated with that. Now, it may not be as as stiff as the one that Griffin and Calg county have between each other, but um you know, we're looking I think they're looking for some direction. I'm looking for some direction to them. If the answer is everybody's good and we're fine, that's okay, too. I just asked them that they needed to start looking to the future and planning now for for things that almost really need to be planned for way back when. So, um you know, I think this is I don't want to speak for board, but I think this is their opportunity to start asking those questions of of the elected officials. Um you know, where where do you all see things going? So, I'm not expecting y'all to have the answer today and tell me, well, this is what we're doing and go here and do that. It's just about having those discussions and getting this moving forward. So,

I myself I could tell you uh I think we need to water for restaurants, industry, uh shopping centers so our constituents and citizens here don't have to go all the way to another county. Um I also know it takes growth to get those to come here too. But I personally from my area, my district, and listening to folks, I don't think they're ready for running water down and then have subdivision after subdivision after subdivision and just destroy the north end of Mayweather counties. It's not so-called rural life, but nice relaxed country life and not just turn it into Petri City or Kawita to now it takes 45 minutes to go from here to the red light in Sonoma. Um, but I do know we do need the water. The water is a necessity, but I don't know how you run water for the to get restaurants, commercial property, and so forth without somebody wanting to tap into it and do the subdivision, too. So, you know, that's where the planning coming in,

right? And and that's very much what what I got to them was, you know, that can be controlled through proper planning. If you're not I used to worked a lot for developers before I got into municipal side of things and I know what they're looking for. where they're looking for the least amount of infrastructure I can put in, the most amount of lots I can sell, and and that's the way the magic happens. But if if the zoning doesn't allow for that, then that can control it. But it but it has to be known up front because they're going to be knocking at the door if they know there's a 12-in water man running down the state route between two towns

and they have accessible land there. Um, they're not going to care that it's going to finally put some more commercial in Lo or Lutherville or even some more in Albertson. They're going to say, "Well, no, this is opportunity for us to put stuff here." And then all that commercial growth will explode as the as the residency there.

Well, I mentioned a while back and we haven't pushed it and planning and zoning and the board hasn't really discussed it, but like you said, to plan ahead and zone for that. I would like that's the reason I'd like to see it stay to a minimum like right now it's 2 acres. That's what it is what it's been. You know, I'd like for it to either stay at that or three. If someone was to come in develop it, even though they got water, they would know they still can't go less than two acres, you know, that leaves greenery, that leaves trees that keeps it from being just cut up and you just see rooftops as far as you can see. And uh I personally, and I don't mind showing where I stand, I would never vote for that long as I'm sitting up here in my district to have just rooftops after rooftop. And and you know, I'd be want to set up to where you know, you got an entrance that goes in and it goes parallel and you got to leave so much green space and trees out front and counties are starting to do that too. I've seen some of their developments. You really don't see it until you pass the entrance, you know, and that's nice, but a lot of people want to come down there and clear cut all the timber and there ain't a tree nowhere, then build it up and then you're looking at nothing but, you know, shingles and party plank. And long as I'm sitting here, I I'd never vote for that. Sure. But I do want the water. So that's why I said how how do we how do we solve

initial discussions, you know, Lutherville has been one thing that's brought it up because the authority and um and Luna have both worked hard to provide them with an emergency connection to be able to provide some water to help them through right now. Um but even at the industrial park when you know Miss Jaden and them bring in another prospect even outside of the park but adjacent to it in the areas that are kind of shown on the comp plan as this uh what is it called again? Potential growth areas along 54 right there. You know the big holdup is going to be water and sewer. Um and right now you know they're limited to 250,000 gallons a day from Hogensville which you know essentially one good industry could eat that. Hell yeah.

In no time. And they've been fortunate or unfortunate. Fortunate that the demand hasn't hit them super hard yet. Unfortunate in the fact that they need some demand because they need some revenue, too. Um, so, but we know that Hogensville is having issues because at times Hoganville has asked them to try to cut back on the water usage because this Amazon thing has been using up a lot of water during construction and they will afterwards. So, they can't spice 250,000 gallons today, right? even though they're agreements there. So, we're just trying to look to

and we do need more industry up there. We need more jobs. We need more tax base and we got to have the water for that. So, I agree. Now, look on this map right here that shows Woodberry. Um I guess that assuming we pull out of Woodberry and go feed feed out of Woodberry with water.

Well, there there's options and and that's this is again a starting point this map not exactly. We're not showing tide to a specific 8 in line at the end in the Woodbury system, etc. We're kind of close to where we pull from Lake Mary where they're I mean the Griffin example, you know, the water's right there where Griffin's driveway comes out on the flat shovels road right there and then turns right go to Concord and and Zedin uh and back on into Griffin. Um, and so for the ease of showing these connections and the distance between, we went from the center the center point of most of these communities to the next one. Even though we may be having master meters tied into the systems, but it would also depend on whether the systems want to be tied into it.

Well, the reason I was asking that, I'd like the water sewer authority um board authority to look into this. We're going back again talking about how much water city Woodbury has a withdrawal permit. Now, that would really be a spur in the saddle if all of a sudden we pulled a line out of Woodbury to come back through the county and now city of Woodberry is charging us for every gallon, but yet they're pulling water from our lake. We need to make sure we're addressing that. Does that make sense? Yes.

We need to address that before that day ever comes. It may not come for 10 years or 20 years. It may come in five. But I'd hate to know that our taxpayers, we own the property, they go and increase their water withdrawal permit up to the maximum they

the maximum. So, we don't even get a permit. And now we want to come out of there and they probably would need us to help them with a water treatment plant to bring it up to par. But they're going to charge Mayworthy County so much a gallon like everybody else is going to charge and charge a contract on it and they have no liability on the lake. So I think that's something that the water authority really needs to be working with John or whoever that's above my pay scale. Is there any way we can look into any type of agreement or way back when there's nothing there's absolutely

I'm sure there's something when the lake was built we could really hone in on that and if not that you know we might could get a permit I don't know how much that rose board will even yield 750 it's kind of shallow too

well you'd have to get with EPD first and find What's the max it can pull off Lake Mary? All right. And then um I don't know who I know I know the knows how to do the paperwork and uh if he he was originally going to start on that and then everything changed and he retired and so forth, but somebody would know how to help get that uh paperwork going to the state and so forth. We can get one. They're not going to deny us one. It's just a matter of someone's got to get the ball rolling, do the paperwork and submit it and find out how much can we withdraw from Lake Marworth. Who is the agreement with the agreement that y'all are talking about is between county and one spring EPD state.

So between So in theory should be in the minutes but say what in theory the agreement should be in the minutes. Only one that probably know about that would be Robert and he's not going. Well, I'm saying the agreement should be set. It doesn't matter what somebody remembers about it. I mean, we need You would think the supposed to be in business yet. Any water we can buy still got to be processed food plant. We don't have a plan.

I understand that, but we don't want to make sure, you know, we're not paying the top dollar that they would charge something. You know, I mean, it's got to be a give and take situation. you know, all of a sudden I remember to since I've been on the board, I don't know if y'all remember, there was this at first there was a discussion about whether they were fixing to make us do something out there to the the dam or some concrete walls or and then for some reason they decided that uh it's fine for now, but like if they come out and tell the county you got to go out there and spend $800,000 or a million half dollars on that dam and and so forth, that's when they were trying to think of raising the level.

Okay. And that would require raising the dam and a whole lot of other dirt work because you got the big area over past the dam that's the overflow fieldway. That would all have to be raised in the same way. But if all that was done, that'd be the expense of the county and not city of Woodbury. Yeah. But that would be my point. We can't put all that money in there and spend all that money, but then the city of Woodbury turn around and charge us for water. Do it have to be an agreement where they would be participating in the cost if that ever takes place in the future. Well, I had said it would take a different view. I know. I don't mean, but I don't mind talking about

Well, if there's not an agree I mean, if nobody has the agreement, then there is no agreement. But I would assume EPD has the agreement. If the county can't find it, then it would be very benefits from it, then they should have a copy. But, I mean, if if nobody can produce a copy of agreement, there's not going to be an agreement based upon what so and so remembers. That's not how it works. Yeah. The last time Ron Garrett was in office before he went out, he had it increased to 750,000 gallons. They have it in their file EPD withdrawal up to 750,000 gallons a day. He did as the mayor of Woodbury. He he had they already had one, but he did the paperwork to get it increased.

But what we don't have is an agreement between the county and Woodbury about who pays who pays for who's what. So John, do you Sorry, John. Do you have that in the notes here to either county staff or attorneys investigate and find the answer to this? So, okay. I've been waiting. Yeah. I probably before I was even born probably. But they're tried to look for it too back when we first came on board 3 years ago. Well, and he said it if I did it I No, I'm saying he said way back they built the lake but he couldn't find anything. That's what I'm saying. Like if there is if nobody has an agreement then there's no agreement. That's why we need one. How much did you just start? Yeah.

Yeah. They would have it on their file for sure. Make sure I mean if EPD doesn't and the county doesn't have it. Well, the two parties agreement if Woodberry if anybody if nobody can produce the agreement then there is no agreement. What the other thing is what's the access what what Woodbury is not using out of Lake Mayweather. It's not going to make a dent into what we need in the northern end of the county. And you talk about I'm just bringing it up as part of this meet today for y'all to be addressing it

and you know I mean when you stand at Lake Bear to see what's coming out the spillway you can't vision much more excess than what's coming out the spillway. That's it. So we got to look and if we got to commit to do any of this there's going to be a strong financial commitment that the county's got to make. We're probably going to have to do to do something this vast. We can do it in bases certainly, but we're gonna probably have to do it with uh grants from the US Department of Agriculture and then at best that's going to be a 50% grant. So, we're going to have to come up. We probably believe somewhere between8 and $10 million to start this thing. And could aren't y'all with the authority? Aren't y'all able to get some kind of bond you get? How much you get a year from? How much do you get a year from the bond we have now? Is a revenue bond?

How much do you get from the landfill per We get 146. No, I'm talking about what's the total numbers for people watching, listening. We get we get about $250,000 a quarter. $174,000 of that has to go to paying our bond payment. So you already have one bond payment, right? We the bond we have now is a revenue bond. Yep. And the only way we got that revenue bond is with the interal agreement between us and the county of how much of the tip we we get. Well, it's not that we I don't think we would not want to. It's a timeline of when and how with other things we got going on. But at the same time, what kind of growth are we

Well, I'd like to be able to finish the question at least. I mean, I've been listening back and I can't do that, I guess. Okay. Well, you know, it's going to take a financial I don't know what that's going to explain. One of many meetings because I just turn my microphone off. It's one of many meetings that we need to have and and and when when I ask for a total commitment today. We just want y'all be aware of the possibilities of what we want to do.

Why do you need the commitment? Is it our current citizens? Can I finish the question, please? I listen to every one of y'all. Finish everything you said. Are our current citizens asking to be put on city water? Are we having businesses actively deny coming to the county because they can't get enough water? Do we have uh residential growth that we want to see that the cities in the northern end of the county are asking for, which is why we need this water? And then what is the cost per mile to install this pipe to one of these places, which we're going to have to incur that cost. That's what y'all are here getting us to plan for. And what is the tax revenue need to be generated to overcome that cost? We need answers to all of that, too. Because we can't just plan and say what we want to do when like less than a 5year plan. We've got a good plan going in and activities to have all the county buildings up to modernizing special and all the roads back to 100% paid. Don't want to enter into something for there's not an urgent need and people are suffering for the next 5 years until we get that completed and up to speed. Does that make sense?

That makes total sense. The reason we're here is to find out those figures that you need. We need to do some f further study. We need some money. We need to spend some money on that to do the study. Do the study. And we don't need to go no further if y'all going to say no, we're not interested at all. So that's why we're here today is to go do a further study. That's why I say if without some of those answers, we don't know how aggressive we want to be in this process. I'm saying that totally too. Without that, I'm telling you, I'm not wanting to be aggressive at all because I don't know what the cost is and what the recovery of that is. And then, you know, but so I agree. If that's what y'all looking for, we can do that.

Yeah. We just want a preliminary agreement that yes, we'll we're willing to look into this and and if y'all spend a little bit more money and give us some more detailed figures, then we'd make a final decision at that point. So, we're not asking for any money right now. We do have some money in the account where we can spend on some of these studies, right? But we don't want to waste that money. So that's kind of getting a feel of of the commissioners, you know, and to answer a lot of your questions, we need some of those studies formed. That's great. So shadow box in here.

Well, and you know, another thing I'm seeing is you you got a commitment with Hogsville and then talking about Cowita, they don't want to just be the backup. They want to be the supplier for Lutherville. So, you know, if you already got a commitment with Hogenfield, if they're not going to honor that commitment, honor the gallons, maybe you go to Cowita and get all your water from Cowita, we have to run a P. Yeah. Yeah, I understand that. But then you come through Lutherville with it and that'd be the first thing we could do for it' be a fair amount of money, but it still be reasonable.

It wouldn't be with process. It'd be a lot better than running us from Lake Mar up there. Well, what agreements do we have that if we spend $8 to10 million on a pipeline to go into Kawita County and solve this problem tomorrow that Lutherville is not going to approve 15 subdivisions to go in and tap into it and now we're at the same place again?

Two two things, Mr. Paul. Uh I'm glad you're here. I'm I'm glad you're here, but we need you to state your position and your name stuff for the minutes that just so No, no, no. It's just we're all having good time. It's like a relaxed meeting and I thought about it while ago, but everybody was going so fast I didn't want to interrupt. So state that for so she'll have it in the meetings and I'm tickled to death that you're here, sir. Paul Parker, host for city of Lutherville City Council.

Thank you, Mr. And now somebody mentioned earlier they said, "Well, that's the city of Lutherville. That's what they want to do. They want to get in the water business." And they started selling water and started running the line further out and further out and further out. But whoever made those decisions, whether it was before Paul, whatever board it was, if they did not know they're working off a whale, they created this problem. So if we all of a sudden start talking about bringing a main line in from Cow Heater somewhere, it's going to be a big commitment on the city of Lutherville. how much money they're going to put into that, too. Cuz this county taxpayers are not going to pay for the line to get ran from there to Luther'sville to solve their problems that somebody created without realizing, hey, we're on a whale. And everybody knows a whale doesn't always last forever. Kind of like water from cow. Unless somebody contaminates the lake, you're pretty much going to have water, you know, unless we hit the damn brakes or something. But a whale, everybody knows a well can go down, a well can go dry, but yet they continue letting these subdivisions go out there and expand further and further out to sell water. So I just don't want that to become this board's problem because the citizens of Luther'sville are having water problems. I care for them, but it cannot become the the county's responsibility financially to take care of their well problems. They're going to have to either get grants or come in here too and say, "Hey, we can provide this. Y'all can provide this. Can we provide this?" And then we all work together as a team to get it done.

So, should we let go ahead and run their own borderline cabin?

If they if they got the money to do it, why would you do then? And then tie then tie into that later. Look what they did out there when they brought the landfield in. See, you had boards up here that the landfill people said, you know, "Hey, we're going to give y'all all this land so you have your own industrial park." See, they're smart, brilliant businessmen. We're going to give you all this land for an industrial park. So, they're all excited. We're going to get all this land for industrial park. Then they turned around and said, "Uh, y'all need water, sewer to your industrial park." So, the county flipped the bill to get all that done and then all they did is tie into it. So see that's where it cost a lot of money back then too. So same thing if Lutherville wants to have water cow county lines just up there past Lutherville and Morland correct if they want to bring a line on down there and start on that they should have already started doing that. If they can do it it would be great and once that line's here now we could be sitting here talking about do we want to tie into that line and work a deal to come on through Lutherville and come on down. That's my opinion through development in years, but I'm just, you know, I'm just one guy sitting here, but and I did not mean it that way, Paul. Like, that that's y'all's problem. No, it's it's our problem technically because those are all taxpaying citizens and their lives and their livelihoods depend on water. Water water's life. I'm just saying when you take boards from previous years, make all these decisions, it's finally catching up with them. And now somebody's somebody's got to help with a problem. We got to figure out how

on paper we were using onethird of our capacity, but that that was very obvious in the last couple years and few years that was not our true capacity. We were well over that. So when we started having power we did a lot of right

I agree that that luther a ought to cost here into this butil is mariju both both both will if if if it draws in industry commercial property both Lutherville and Marwood County will benefit so it's not just let's let's make Lutherville do this project it's let's together make this project happen. That's my opinion. That's that's that's way I'm sitting on the water authority. You want to do that. Well, that's why we'd have to act in concert with the areas up there because we can't spend that kind of money and then

for example, the city of Lutherville act independently then with growth when we're bringing this in to expand into the whole entire northern end, right? We can't get it to them first because they're in the biggest need and then they start tapping on it like crazy and we can't spread it. These cities for annexation. Oh, it's great. They don't even think about how we going to have water. And I'm sure that's what happened there. I'm sure these councils were approving these subdivisions and all that selling water and nobody thought about. But that's how important it is. You know, that's what that's my point.

So, yeah, there's one more thing I want Bill to talk about. We we've talked with the Roosevelt Institute about taking over their facility, you know, their water treatment plant. And I'll let Bill talk about it because he he's been involved in it. And that's another water source that Marweather County can have in store water from too. And John was approached by uh guys at the institute about potential or possibility of the water board taking over their system. And um I know John was one thing they mentioned in that meeting with us was that you know they've got some really nice recreation facilities over there. So maybe a win-win if you know if that worked out and that county could also possibly make me use of of their facilities you know to do whatever the recreation needs are. Um, so I met with uh about there's five people from locals all the way up to the to the capital um to talk about that and they are very interested in getting out of work with they just want to be done with it's just complicated that facility over there has I don't know four or five different entities that use the facility. So it's just a it's just a mess trying to for them to handle that. uh the system supplies water to uh of course themselves and u also the uh Roosevelt State Park and they have an interconnection with the hospital there as a backup supply city of Orange Springs you know can't supply water to the hospital um the facilities uh the facilities itself in 2006 they did a pretty major uh rehab of their system with all their mains and their water tanks uh not water tanks mains and

getting their fire hydrants all back in shape or new ones put in. 2021 they rehab their water tanks. They have two water tanks there on site. They actually get their water from the warm spring. I mean it comes when it's being after it's treated and pumped into their system, it's about 80° and uh so so all that part of the system is good. They had a facilities report done by the state that identified that the actual pump house and the pump and water treatment equipment is in kind of poor condition and over the next um 10 years probably is going to lead was to I think it was 700 like 750,000 worth of work to get it back up to speed. So the pumps going out the treatment facilities need rehab. So that's kind of the only, you know, foreseeable really cost that would be associated with the system. Um, what else they got? They have uh the facility is uh permitted for 150,000 gallons a day with a maximum of 196,000 gallons a day. The spring itself has been historically measured to pump about 650 gallons per minute. side works out to about a million gallons a day of capacity to come through that spring. So if you look at you know right now they're using less than 100,000 gallons a day. um you know if if and we're all you know just thinking long term what we need here and there but if we were to take over that as a source I as a as a water authority we could probably have you at least pre three or 400,000 gallons maybe a day of available capacity to shield somewhere else and uh so you know guarantee you got to deal

with states you got to you know but it's he heavily developed So, um, it's, you know, the possibilities there. Um, you know, looking at the map, War Springs is still a lot further south than even Woodbury. So, does that help us with, you know, situations in the north that, but it's just another potential source of of water, somebody, you know, that has excess water that could be in place. And uh the question is, you know, is the county interested in us taking over the system in terms of making, you know, a part of our water business and also negotiating some type of use of the recreational facilities or whatever the county builds it needs to make it a win-win situation that respect. So that's kind of where we are. I thought with uh pod very this past weekend they're still very consistent in doing that. They they just want to get out and work. I don't got any

that's same conversation I had was just they got the camps ball field just a lot of recreational took over the managing the water system you probably want to contract that out that'll be a cost of the county so they would turn that over to our recreation department possibly for summer camps ideally that be recreation it's not being used right Now that includes the old golf course back there. That's no longer a golf course at all.

Well, that's where we and the golf course actually has its own water supply. So part of that is this the city of Warm Springs water system or the institution. They had their own watercolor. Yeah. They want to get out of the pan. What we would have to do, we would have to go in and put beers in all the buildings. Thanks for reminding me, Larry. That was the other thing. would have to go in and put me beers in all the buildings so we could build them for the water cuz like what Bob was saying there there's so many different entities in the institute that that you know different lots of money I call it things that go so it would take up yeah so that'd be another cost for taking over that system

and there's 20 meters that would be needed some are fire meters some are building meters but uh you would have to have that individually metered so that they can charge whoever their client are for the the meter usage. One good thing it would do would it would justify the authority to have some personnel because right now all of our you know everything we have is subcontracted to different people and it'd be really kind of nice to have some full-time people that can take care of some of these water, you know, issues that pop up and can monitor our systems. right now with just the system we have up in the north part of the county, it really is we're right on the verge of of beating at least one, you know, part-time or full-time person, you know, to handle that shortly. I mean, we're the board. We meet once a month. And with the water system, you need somebody that's on call.

Well, is it kind of some physical facilities there on the institute that would be ours? Yeah, you'd have uh the actual you have water tanks, you'd have all the infrastructure, you'd have the water treatment facility, which also has its own treatment tanks there. So, I mean, it would be a coordinate. They won't sell it. They'll just y'all take it over. This has to be turn it over conversation. The state wants to turn it over to either War authority at War Springs. It's a lot more complicated than that. Yeah. So,

it'd be nice too if you was able you talking about all these meters and so forth if we if you was able to come back and tell us like this is how many meters they're going to need. This is how much water they're using. This is what's going to the revenue it's going to generate per month. We need to see those numbers too to understand spending this money over here. Yeah. And to get those numbers, we're going to have to hire John and his group to go in and do, you know, kind of reassess the whole system. Who's monitoring y'all's water out there now that Barry used to go out there and do? We use J&T service. J&T service. That's somebody y'all contracted. Okay. But but you know, whoever we hire with, you know, whoever that is has got to have a a water license.

Yeah. I just didn't know who y'all had out there. I do very well. I guess none of us have Well, she does, but none of us have a license. She does.

I guess on this uh Roosevelt lady if y'all interested in doing y'all need to decide what y'all want to do on it recreational part of it cuz that will be the what y'all get. We we we taking over the rest of it. It's a two-sided thing and y'all need to negotiate some kind of contract system that's with with them along with us and negotiate. It's possibility that we can go back to them say we'll take it over but y'all got to put the meters in that y'all's expense and then we're willing to take it over something like that. And you know if y'all want the ball fields I don't know what you have you know y'all want 20 year agreement or whatever then whoever upkeeps or whatever um that's in between that's just y'all and we together come up with some kind of plan as to what we want out of it in exchange for

what we want them to do but in exchange of what we want out of it. We probably need council to look into that too like he just said it's not that simple. We really need to see what all is going to be involved, what it takes, how many years is it? Are we doing a 50-year deal or I mean it's not something we're just going to do and take it over and then 5 years from now somebody else on the board down wants it back. I just want to know if there's a general appetite to look into. I guess right. Well, my question too when Bob started talking is we need some sort of commitment from the institute that they're going to continue to be there. That's true too. They had to take it all over. They're not and they leave. What are we going to do with it then?

You know, we need something said, "Hey, we're going to be Yeah, there there's some there's quite a few things that need to be answered before we it it looks good and it sounds good and the and the fields and so forth might be able to put some use to them, but I wouldn't let that be the do the dominating decision maker. The water's the main part. the recreation stuff. It would just be a bonus, but we'd need to work out the deals. So, if we took it over, we'd have to have assurances it's going to pay for itself. There's no that's there's no extra money in the budget to got to be a reason they want to get rid of it making money. They wouldn't be handing it out.

That's why you do the study system and want to go out of business, you have to go to the local I understand what I'm saying. You can't just go out of business and go, "Hey, we ain't doing water." I understand that, but I'm saying it's kind like an insurance company. When you go out of business, you got to Yeah, but they're doing their own water. They're they're doing their own water for the institute. Yeah. Okay. Well, you don't go out of business when you going to say, "I'm going to get out of the water business when you got an institute that needs water." So, there's something there that needs to be discussed and figure out. I mean, they tired of fooling with it. Yeah, I know. But they might be tired of dealing with it. They want somebody else to deal with. be my thought. It's a little complicated, but it has to be profitable.

But I mean, can you It's the same reason counties don't want to be in business or you can't add customers and all probably, can you? Yes. But if we take over, we can. Yeah, they can add anything. Yeah, we But I mean, not without running lines and all that. Correct. There we could if we want to. Yeah. Once we take over this islands and water capacity, we can do whatever we want to with long. They don't exceed the always supply them contract supply what they do. But I mean in what I'm saying I guess is in order to add customers you going to have to spend more money to add more money to send them board out some got a developer wants to pay for it all. Yeah.

But we'd have to see if the customers they got now would break even then it might be lost what we do. You know they are supplying the little white house and in the state department that we meet commitments from them. You know they're going to continue to buy water. Okay. Any other question you have for us? I'm good. I think it was a great meeting. I'd like to see more starting point. Yeah. What's that? This a startful. Oh, without a doubt. I'd like to see us add the IDA to the same group.

What's that? So, I'd like to see us add the IDA to the same group because that way we know more about what's coming down the pipeline. Well, we're going to have to start about 12:00. We're going to do that. That's right. All right. All day Saturday. Y'all got any more questions for the forum? that y'all can adjourn. Y'all motion to motion. All in favor? Motion carries. I make large Mr. Chairman. Second.

All in favor? Motion. It did.