Watkinsville And County Discussing Residential Sewer Capacity

Watkinsville City Council last month approved a sewer policy that allocates future residential sewer capacity for intensive residential development of the city center rather than for development of vacant land not at the city core.

At present, the city has no residential sewer capacity available for allocation and is dependent on Oconee County for its sewer services.

Watkinsville is in discussion, however, with the county about receiving some future allocation of sewer capacity from the county’s Calls Creek Water Reclamation Facility on the northern edge of the city.

Those discussions are based on a 1991 agreement between the city of Watkinsville and Oconee County that transferred Watkinsville’s water and sewer services to the county and requires the county to provide the city “with reasonable sewer capacity for its citizens, residences and businesses.”

Justin Kirouac, Oconee County administrator, said the county is still in the process of determining the allocation of residential sewer capacity the county can make to the city and that there is “no specific time frame for reaching an agreement.”

The discussions are constrained, according to Kirouac, by the current limited capacity of the county to treat wastewater and by agreements the county made in the early 2000s to allocate residential sewer capacity to massive master plan developments spread around the county.

For more on this story, with video from the Nov. 20 Council meeting, please go to Oconee County Observations.