Forsyth County Commission Chairman Jim Boff has asked Gov. Nathan Deal, Attorney General Sam Olens and local legislators to intercede in negotiations on a new water contract with the city of Cumming before the situation turns dangerous.
“I believe Forsyth County is urgently in need of your assistance and intervention to help avoid not only a legal crisis, but possibly even a health and public safety crisis,” Boff wrote.
Talks have been stalled since late May, when county officials say they thought they had struck a new deal to buy water from the city, which is one of four jurisdictions allowed to draw from Lake Lanier. But after both sides had approved terms, the city backed out, saying there were no specifics about the charge for water supplied over the standard allocation.
Mayor H. Ford Gravitt went further last week, threatening to cut off the county’s allocation of raw water and sell it only the more expensive treated water. Under its former contract, Forsyth bought both treated and untreated water from Cumming. The county paid 10 cents per 1,000 gallons for untreated and about $2.43 per 1,000 gallons for treated water.
Forsyth paid Cumming about $4 million last year for treated water and about $269,000 for raw water that it processed at its own plant, said Tim Perkins, Forsyth’s director of water and sewer.
Under Gravitt’s ultimatum, the county and its 170,000 some customers could pay triple what they paid last year.
The county’s Water Department reported Thursday that residents have called, worried about their water rates.
“The city doesn’t even have the capability of treating enough water for the county and the city,” Forsyth resident Hal Schneider said. “The idea that [Gravitt] can dictate this is ridiculous.”
Schneider said it is not up to the mayor to decide whether the county gets raw water. That determination was made by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, which issued the permit, he said.
For several months, county commissioners have stepped up efforts to get state permission to withdraw water from Lake Lanier or the Chattahoochee River. So far, the EPD has not acted on those requests.
Representatives from the EPD said Thursday that they were aware of Boff’s letter and were considering the county’s request for water. They offered no further comment.
County Commissioners Patrick Bell and Brian Tam pointed out that even with a water permit, it could take 10 years and millions of dollars to put up the facilities to draw the water to a county treatment plant.
“We need an agreement of some kind,” Bell said.
In response to some of the criticism leveled against the city, Gravitt has stressed that Cumming has provided the county uninterrupted water service for 25 years at some of the lowest rates in the region. The mayor also has pointed out that Cumming put forth the initial time, labor and money to build and maintain the water system that has benefited the county over the past three decades.
In a letter to the county last week, Gravitt seemed particularly riled by the county’s refusal to pay a portion of the expenses for upgrades to the city’s water intake facility at Lake Lanier. The city sent the county a bill in January seeking $11.4 million of the $17 million tab for the improvements.
“If the county is not willing to pay its agreed upon portion of the costs for the new water intake facility,” Gravitt wrote, “then there is no reason the county should receive raw water from that facility.”
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