NEWBERRY — The Newberry County Water and Sewer Authority Board of Directors viewed the preliminary numbers, provided by Summit Engineering Group Inc., for the Macedonia Church Road Duplex Pump Station project.

The design was prepared in May of 2019, when the NCWSA first began looking into the project.

“The goal of this project is to split the elevation head from the Hollands Landing Road Pump Station to where the Siphon Station was — thus adding quite a bit of capacity at Hollands. The new station, of course, would have future capacity added into it plus a 20 percent additional capacity in the new station,” said NCWSA Manager Brent Richardson.

According to Richardson, this project has now been moved to the forefront due to a large majority of wastewater flow going through the Hollands Land Road Pump Station.

“We are experiencing difficulties with all the saturation in our groundwater and the infiltration getting in these solids tanks and getting in our sewer system. We’re experiencing some problems keeping up with flow on days we experience an extreme rainfall,” he said. “We need to be in a position where we can keep up pumping and as we speak we’re in a tough situation right now.”

The total estimated cost of the project is $451,800.

“This project will be designed to handle capacity of existing homes on the Lake Murray area, future homes, growth at our water treatment plant — a lot of the flow that comes up Macedonia Church Road, that’s coming from our water treatment plant. This is designed to accommodate future flow,” Richardson said.

Richardson recommended to the board to proceed with rectifying the situation, minimizing the effect of having future overflows in the area.

The big question on the table was where the money would come from to pay for the project.

Richardson said the money can come out of the Authority’s Capacity Fund — it is providing capacity to transport wastewater to the treatment facility.

NCWSA Assistant Manager Daniel Quattlebaum said in the Sewer Capacity Fund there is a total of $360,266 available.

“That’s restricted money — in other words, in the Sewer Capacity Fund, we’re only allowed to use it for transporting treatment of wastewater,” he said. “This is in the Financial Policy that states we will use restricted money first, then we’ll go into the General Reserves — that money would be used and then the balance after we got hard numbers on the construction. It could come out of the Operating Reserve Fund, which currently has $1,747,000 in it.”

According to Quattlebaum, NCWSA is in good financial shape to handle the project. Richardson added that weather has caused the project to take priority and will need to be installed at some point.

A motion was made by Board Member Terry Rawls and seconded by Board Member Lewis Lee to to authorize NCWSA management to proceed with the project, using the money in the Sewer Capacity Fund and the remaining in the General Funds.

In other business, Richardson reported operations at both the Lake Murray Water Treatment Plant and Cannons Creek are in normal operation.

For water distribution, there was one main line leak at Holiday Acres Road and four new water services installed. From the Wastewater Collection department, there were no reported main line leaks. Pump station repairs included: Macedonia (eliminated — bypass piping installed). Four new sewer services were installed.

In the Financial Report for the month, Quattlebaum reported water revenue at $244,985 against a water expense of $190,845 for a positive result of $54,140. On the sewer side, sewer revenue for the month was $92,056 against sewer expense of $123,433 for a loss of $31,377.

Noteworthy items included in report:

• Sewer Sludge Cannons Creek ($50,500).

Board approved, but not included in report:

• Bedford Way Lagoon Closeout ($51,300).

• South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) Relocation — Jollystreet Road ($47,470).

Other business:

• A motion was made by Lee and seconded by Board Member Brian Alvarez to approve the NCWSA Operating Policies and Regulations effective Feb. 20.

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By Kelly Duncan

kduncan@championcarolinas.com

Reach Kelly Duncan at 803-768-3123 ext. 1868 or on Twitter @TheNBOnews.