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At Friday’s meeting with the mayors, County Commission Chairman Danny Yearwood expressed his concerns regarding the future of the county’s water supply from the Bear Creek Reservoir.
Yearwood was talking about the water contracts that the municipalities have with the county as part of its Service Delivery Strategy, a requirement of the state’s House Bill 489, which protects citizens from duplication of services.
In previous meetings with the mayors, Yearwood spoke about how he was planing to renegotiate the contracts as the county is losing hundreds of thousands of dollars at the current water rate.
On Friday, Yearwood was told by the mayors that he would need to sit down with each city to work out the water contract.
Yearwood briefed the mayors on his concerns about the water that the county takes from the Bear Creek Reservoir.
The Upper Oconee Water Basin Authority manages the reservoir, and is made up of Jackson, Oconee, Athens-Clarke and Barrow counties.
Jackson County officials brought forth the suit against the authority in October 2008 to force a recalculation of the amount of water that can be taken from the reservoir. Jackson County is arguing that engineers incorrectly calculated the amount of water that can be safely removed from the reservoir daily.
In May, a Jackson County Superior Court judge allowed county officials to continue their lawsuit against the Upper Oconee Water Basin Authority, which manages the Bear Creek Reservoir.Yearwood is concerned that Jackson County wants to reduce the amount of water removed from the reservoir, which will decrease the amount of water Barrow County will receive.
"I’ve got to protect Barrow County’s water," Yearwood told the mayors, and said that if negotiations and talks do not work out, he felt he would have "no other option" but to sue Jackson County.
However, Yearwood said he didn’t want to do anything until a final decision was made on the case.
"I’ve got to protect our water," Yearwood said again. "If I don’t protect what’s already been purchased for the future of Barrow County, we won’t have any water."
Yearwood also asked Myron Garrett, the county’s water authority director, to explain a mistake in the current water contracts.
Currently, if the maximum capacity of water was taken from the county by all the cities who have agreements with it, then that would amount to 9.7 million gallons daily, he said.
However, Barrow County is only allowed a maximum of 8 million gallons per day.
"The contracts that are in place, we couldn’t do it," Yearwood said.
Winder City Administrator Bob Beck asked if the county planned to renegotiate water contracts so that the water volume is not over the limit.
"We’ve got to," Yearwood replied.
At the end of the meeting, when water was mentioned again, as it is one area where a narrative has not been completed, Winder Mayor Chip Thompson said that hopefully one day Barrow County might have its own reservoir.
"We’ve got to get where we can take care of our own," Statham Mayor Robert Bridges told the others.
The SDS is nearing completion. There are only a few more topics, like water, that are to be discussed and agreed upon.
At the meeting, the chairman and mayors went over six parts of the service delivery strategy that have already been written up by Braselton Town Manager Jennifer Dees.
Those issues — courts, animal control, jail services, Emergency Management Services/E911/EMA, solid waste and fire — were all agreed upon. The solid waste narrative will have to be reworked by Dees to add information about Statham’s trash services.
