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Cumming, Forsyth agree on new arrangement for extra sewer capacity
city

CUMMING — The city of Cumming and Forsyth County appear to be changing their business relationship for one important service.

During a meeting on Tuesday, the Cumming City Council voted 5-0 to move forward with selling extra sewer capacity to the county and also changing the process for doing so to a case-by-case basis. The two governments previously needed a legal agreement.

“Working with engineers, the city could sell sewer capacity to the county on a case-by-case basis instead of going through all the paperwork of [those agreements] and things of that nature,” explained Jon Heard, the city’s utilities director. “The sewer will be sold at the going rate of the day. Currently, we have certain areas that are $20 per gallon per day and other areas that are $25.”

The sewer capacity agreed on Tuesday will go toward a new Kroger-anchored retail development at Castleberry and Bethelview roads. In a follow-up interview, Heard said the development would likely use about 30,000 gallons per day of capacity.

Tuesday night, responding to questions from Councilwoman Linda Ledbetter, Heard said the change in process would save both governments money, particularly since each agreement will no longer have to flow between attorneys.

“There would be a lot of negotiating back and forth just to create the [agreement] and every single time we wanted to sell sewer capacity we had to create a new [agreement],” he said.

The county had previously approved the new arrangement.

Also during its meeting Tuesday, the council awarded bids for a few other water projects:

* A bid for a force main and pump station on Chamblee Gap Road was approved, with the work to be handled by Strickland and Sons Pipeline for about $879,000.

* Construction of the new Cheatham Creek Wastewater Pump Station, which will replace an existing pump station, went to R2T Inc. of Roswell for nearly $1.7 million.

* The facility will also receive a gravity sewer and force main, which will be installed by Haren Construction Co. for about $1.5 million.