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South county sewerage project to be completed in phases There were 30 people in attendance on Jan. 9 at the McIntosh City Hall for the fourth meeting toward creating a sewerage system in the lower end of Washington County. Probate Judge Charles Singleton presided and four of the county commissioners, Mayor Carroll Daugherty, along with representatives from South Alabama Utilities and the McIntosh Water Board were present. Singleton read from a report that gave a total of 1,995 residences and 109 others (schools, churches, businesses) as those scheduled to receive sewerage service. There will be 99 miles of pipe. William Luker of Speaks & Associates, reported that there are approximately 5,200 people within the 2,100 customers of the projected system. The total cost of the proposed system is $23,488,520. Janey Galbraith of Galbraith & Associates, Washington County's grant writer, stressed several times that for the project to "work," there must be an established cash-flow. The general estimate is that grants will furnish approximately 40 percent of the needed revenue with the remaining 60 percent to be borrowed. Therefore, to repay the loan, there has to be a guaranteed cash-flow generated by the sewerage system. For this project to be successful, all residences and other entities in the service area must become paying customers of the sewerage system; therefore, the collection of sewerage fees will be tied to the two water systems involved: South Alabama Utilities and McIntosh Water System; who will have the authority to turn off water service to anyone delinquent with sewerage fees. The projected sewerage system is hoping to get a grant for 40 percent of the costs from Rural Development of USDA. Nivory Gordon of Rural Development was present at Wednesday's meeting. He raised the question twice as to the Washington County Commission's authority to require mandatory sewerage participation from citizens. Janey Galbraith twice assured him that it is legal. Singleton asked those representing South Alabama Utilities (SAU) for progress/feed-back from their organization regarding participation in the sewerage project. SAU furnishes water to the Charity Chapel community and other locations in lower Washington County. While SAU appeared willing to participate, they stopped short of blanket agreement. Don Cunningham of SAU said he would meet with the Mobile County Commission later that afternoon. He said, "South Alabama Utilities is back into the talking stages." He explained that SAU has been put into the decentralized system of West Mobile County. He further stated that there are a lot of unanswered questions that need to be answered quickly. There was a group general consensus that a project of this magnitude will have to be done in stages and that the city of McIntosh, and east on River Road, and the Highway 43 corridor will be phase one. Galbraith emphasized that this project is like a "modular puzzle," in both construction and financing; and each succeeding module must fit into the one before it. Galbraith explained that the very first thing to be done is an environmental impact study. As this will be done before any grant or loan applications, the question arose as to who would pay and how much? Singleton said "We need to go ahead and do the impact study for the whole area." Commissioner Willie Dixon asked, "Who will pay for the environmental study? Will the county commission be responsible for that cost? Can we get a rough idea of how much the study will be?" Jerry Luker of Speaks & Associates estimated the amount of the study at $10,000. When contacted later, Commissioner Dixon said that the county commission and the town of McIntosh will be responsible initially for the expense of the environmental impact study, but at some point after the loan is secured, those entities will be reimbursed. Mike Barnett, McIntosh Chief of Police, and one of those who has pushed this project from its beginning, stated, "If we don't do something in 2008, we are going to lose investors." Galbraith answered, "I do not think what I'm looking at can sustain itself on a bank loan. This will take Rural Development and a direct cash flow. We have to consider the 'benefit-ration per mile.' It takes a long time to go through the process. Do McIntosh and Highway 43; begin with something that can succeed. But you do need to agree on phases one, two and three." Barnett asked, "What is the time frame to get funding and start construction?" "Eighteen months," answered Galbraith. Commissioner Allen Bailey asked if there was any way to get a dollar amount for the hook up cost for home owners. Galbraith said, "I don't want to say that publicly at this time." She did infer that existing customers could be grants (hook up fee) and new construction will pay the fee. Alan Hargrove who does construction management development was in the audience. He told the group that he had purchased nine acres on Daugherty Circle and that he is talking with fast-food, strip-mall, and motel people. He is also looking at a 26-house subdivision on Floyd Johnson Road. There was a great deal of discussion about encouraging builders to go ahead and build and provide holding tanks for sewerage that would be pumped at regular intervals. Before the next meeting, Singleton said three things need to get underway: consult an attorney to draw up documents to create a legal entity (and name). That entity will be composed of one member each from county government, city government, McIntosh Water System and South Alabama Utilities. These four members will select one member-at-large from the service area, and begin work on the environmental impact study.
The next meeting of this group is scheduled for Jan. 23 at 2 p.m.
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