Oconee County Utility Department Director Promises Sewer Service To Calls Creek Residents; Costs Of Delivery Not Known

At the Town Hall meeting late last month, Oconee County Utility Department Director Wayne Haynie said the county would put in not one but two sewer lines down Calls Creek if the Board of Commissioners approved his plans for the upgrade of the county’s sewage treatment plant.

Haynie was making the case for the gravity sewer line to a skeptical audience, arguing that young home owners would be attracted to the Calls Creek corridor by the availability of sewage service over the existing private septic systems that serve the subdivisions along the creek.

Haynie said the county would install the gravity line for treated sewer water and another gravity line to collect untreated sewage, which then would be pumped back upstream to the county’s sewage plant on the outskirts of Watkinsville for treatment.

Such a system actually would require three sewer lines, one to carry treated water downhill, one to carry untreated sewer water downhill, and a third to pump untreated sewer water uphill to the sewer plant.

Haynie didn’t include the costs of the two additional lines and the required pump station in his comparison of costs for the gravity sewer line with other options, which Haynie argued were more costly and less efficient than the gravity line.

For details of this story, go to Oconee County Observations.

Pictured: Wayne Haynie