August 22, 2007

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            In July, Raleigh Public Utilities Director Dale Crisp sent a memo to Russell Allen, the city manager. “In order for Raleigh to consider agreeing to an agreement with Franklin County to match the annexation agreement, Franklin County must permanently drop their interest in ever using the Burlington Mills intake as a water source.”

            The annexation agreement between Youngsville and Wake Forest was reached earlier this year and is similar to those between Wake Forest and Rolesville and Wake Forest and Raleigh. The agreements set future service areas, with both sides agreeing not to annex across the lines.

            Wake Forest sought the agreement with Youngsville because Wake Forest can serve an area in Franklin County west, south and east of Youngsville with gravity sewer while Youngsville would have to use pumps. Also, there had been at least one property owner expressing interest in being annexed to use the Wake Forest water and sewer systems, which are owned and operated by Raleigh.

            Wake Forest Town Manager Mark Williams said he sent the annexation agreement on to Raleigh for its blessing. “They’re refusing to bless it. They’re kind of holding that agreement hostage until we can get the other issue resolved.”

            Williams said this week he is trying to schedule a meeting between the three parties to work out the problem, and the date will be after the first of October. “There’s no real rush. We don’t have any developments that immediately need to know they have water and sewer.”

            Williams also said he and Raleigh officials are reading the water and sewer merger agreement differently. His reading is, “If the subdivision is within our jurisdiction, then Raleigh is supposed to serve it.” Raleigh, Williams said, considers the Franklin County land new territory that was not considered during merger.

            “They knew about Richland Hills (a subdivision split between Wake and Franklin that was under construction at the time of merger), but they say that any future territory in Franklin County is not included,” Williams said. “That’s why we sent them the agreement and asked them to bless it.”

            Franklin County is going ahead with its plans to tap the Neuse at the former Burlington Mills plant on Capital Boulevard, the same water source Wake Forest considered seriously before selling its utilities to Raleigh.

            There is no signed agreement with River Place II, the corporation which owns the plant, Bryce Mendenhall, Franklin County Director of Public Utilities, said, but the county has been working on administrative and legal matters with them for most of a year. River Place II’s owners are William Trent, Bennett Keasler, Eugene Boyce, John Elmore and John Lancaster.

            The intake is rated at 6 to 7 million gallons a day, Mendenhall said, and its watershed is rated Water Supply IV, a classification Raleigh has strong opposed and tried to change.

            Mendenhall said the county plans to use 2 million gallons a day from the Neuse.

            Franklin County has assured the state Environmental Commission that it is proceeding “with good faith and intent” to use the intake. Right now, Mendenhall said, they are waiting for the final version of the engineer’s report. “We hope to have the completed study in our hands by Oct. 1.”

            “Is it a feasible source of water? Yes, it is,” Mendenhall said. But he went on to say there are a number of other factors such as the substantial cost to pipe the water to Franklin County and treat it. There are also a crowd of regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who might have to release some more water from Falls Lake to make up for the 2 million gallons a day Franklin County plans to use. The Corps has to maintain a minimum flow at Clayton. Under the state’s inter-basin transfer legislation, Franklin County would have to find a way to return treated wastewater to the Neuse River basin.

            Franklin County has a contract with the City of Henderson for 3 million gallons a day from Kerr Lake with an option to go to 4 million. That, too, is an inter-basin transfer, from the Roanoke to the Tar River. Some of the Kerr water sold to Henderson ends up in the Neuse River because the Franklin County side of the Richland Hills subdivision uses Franklin water but the entire subdivision’s waste water goes down Richland Creek to Raleigh’s wastewater treatment plant.

            “We don’t think we’re at odds with the City of Raleigh,” Mendenhall said. “We’re working to find a sustainable water source.”

            Franklin is now the ninth fastest growing county in the state with at least three years of steady increases in water use and about 5,000 lots approved for building.

            “If it’s not us [using the intake], there are a people waiting right behind us,” Mendenhall said. “There’s a lot more straws in there.”

            Crisp, who was busy deciding to institute Stage 1 water conservation rules for Raleigh and the six towns where it owns the water and sewer systems, did not return calls Wednesday.