Tap running dry on disputed water contract

The bill is part of a complex bundle the county and city must hash out before their current water contract expires in May. No agreement, and Cumming could charge the county’s 47,000 customers pretty much what it wants — providing it continues supplying water at all.

More daunting than haggling with Cumming, though, is that Forsyth County can’t even clear a path to the negotiating table. County commissioners can’t broach the subject without tempers flaring and insults flying. So far, they haven’t agreed on what to ask for and when to ask for it.

“They’ve left themselves less than three months to get this done and it is one of the most important issues that the county is facing,” said Hal Schneider, a county resident who writes extensively about the issue online.

Cumming and Forsyth are among several metro Atlanta communities at odds over water contracts. Sandy Springs is in federal court over a rate dispute with Atlanta for its water and Hall County continues to pursue its own reservoir in an effort to distance itself from the city of Gainesville.

But Forsyth County stands apart. There is political intrigue and payback at work here and much of it centers on the County Commission.

Alliances among the five members shift, sometimes harshly, whenever the water contract comes up.

At one recent meeting, Commissioner Patrick Bell charged Commissioners Brian Tam and Pete Amos were playing games. He called them “absolutely ridiculous” and “absolutely childish” for refusing to disband a negotiating committee he later regretted ever forming.

In remarks he later apologized for, Bell specifically called out Tam, who was County Commission chairman through all of 2011.

“I made the committee by mistake because you for six years have done nothing and for the last 14 months have done nothing,” Bell charged. “You’ve done zero and here we are on the eve of the water contract expiring and I’m trying to get it done because it’s serious.”

It is serious.

Forsyth gets almost all its water — about 12.2 million gallons a day — from Cumming’s intake pipe at Lake Lanier. Last year, the county paid the city $4 million for treated water and $269,000 for raw water. By contract, it must buy about 4 million gallons a day of the more expensive treated water.

The county has no practical options. With litigation from Alabama and Florida still pending over Lanier’s water rights, the Army Corps of Engineers is not allowing more intake pipes into the lake and the state is not freely issuing permits for additional withdrawals from area streams.

Those commissioners who have spoken out — Chairman Jim Boff and Todd Levent — want the county to retain the option to buy less-treated water and fill its needs with the cheaper raw water, which runs about 10 cents per 1,000 gallons.

They say county water customers could save millions in rates because Forsyth can treat raw water for about a quarter of what Cumming charges for its treated water, about $2.42 per 1,000 gallons.

Both men want negotiations to be conducted in public and they want them to start now. Neither one thinks Forsyth owes Cumming $11.4 million for an upgrade the county never approved on a pipe that the city will continue to own.

The other three commissioners — Bell, Tam and Amos — haven’t presented their ideas publicly, but Tam and Bell have tangled several times since January, when Tam was voted out as chairman.

Tam publicly blamed Bell for his ouster.

One thing all three agree on is that the county’s back is against the wall. They want the current contract extended until October, to coincide with other talks they must have with the city over distribution of sales tax dollars and division of government services.

The full commission is expected to vote on that measure at an April 5 public hearing, six weeks before the current contract expires.

Discord among elected officials is nothing new, but with the clock ticking on the tap, Forsyth’s inability to agree has some residents worried.

“It’s a mess,” said resident David Millum, who blames the dysfunction on political ties a majority of the commissioners have to the city and its longtime mayor, Ford Gravitt.

The intrigue associated with Gravitt runs nearly as long as his 46 years at the helm of the city. It was under Gravitt’s leadership back in the mid-1970s that the city sought and secured its prized permit to draw from Lake Lanier, a liquid lifeline only four other jurisdictions enjoy.

Gravitt, himself, says he’s anxious to hear what the county has in mind once it can get together on a proposal. He says the city has no plans to shut off the water or jack up prices if a deal is not reached by May.

The notion that Cumming overcharges the county for water, he says, is ridiculous, considering all the labor, engineering and infrastructure costs the city has incurred setting up and maintaining the system.

Consider that the contract calls for the county to pay a portion of the costs for upgrades, he says, and pumping water to the county’s outlying lines is more expensive than supplying local customers. Hence a different rate is charged.

“One thing I can say for these 25 years we’ve had a contract with the county [is] they have never been out of water,” Gravitt said. “Regardless of what some of the activists will tell you, we think that it was fair for the county and at the same time, it enabled the city to keep their infrastructure upgraded.”

To hear the mayor, Forsyth County is getting a bargain when compared to surrounding counties.

“They’re getting a sweetheart deal and probably don’t know it,” he said.

Some residents say they’re tired of hearing about how Cumming uses its grip on water to exercise control over the county, whether the charge is true or not.

Jack Gleason, director of environmental concerns for Smart Growth Forsyth, said the battle has gained regional stature as Georgia’s Hatfield-and-McCoys feud and he wants to see both sides share ownership of the utility.

“We could operate in harmony if we just dissolve the components of it that are causing the conflict,” he said. “They walk out there on the water and we meet them, look at each other and we all walk back and feed our populations.”