EDITOR’S NOTE: Preston Waddell’s comments did not make the print edition of this article, but are included here.
ROCKINGHAM — County Manager Bryan Land slammed the petition for county water submitted last month as “disturbing” while speaking before the Board of Commissioner Tuesday after finding that the vast majority of the 431 residents who signed the petition were already receiving municipal water.
Following the beginning of construction of the Old Cheraw Water Main Extension project, some residents in the Wolf Pit area expressed concern that the waterline would not serve enough people and questioned whether the chicken houses in the area were getting preferred access.
“(The waterline) is coming to certain areas and bypassing others,” said Preston Waddell in an interview in February, chairperson of the Wolf Pit #4 precinct and one of the drivers of the petition. Debra Mormon expressed frustration that she was not able to tap on to the waterline even though she is relatively close to it at 2,000 feet away.
“Nothing against poultry farmers,” Morman said in an interview in February, “but these families were here before the poultry farmers moved in.”
Land said at the Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday that 96 percent of the people who signed the petition were currently receiving municipal water, with the majority of them living in Rockingham, Hamlet or just outside of the city limits. Of the 431, only 19 were within the service area.
“While I appreciate the efforts of the residents who signed the petition and truly empathize with them the bottom line is the vast majority of the petitioners already have access to municipal water,” Land said. “Decisions cannot be made on emotions alone.”
In response to a question from Commissioner Ben Moss, Land said that county staff spent 56 hours between them verifying the eligibility of the residents that signed the petition. Land added that there were several people who said they only signed the petition to get the other petitioners who were “harassing” them “off their backs.”
“There was zero need to sensationalize the story and make an attempt to play on emotions by adding random signatures from all over Richmond County,” Land said in an email.
Waddell, who was in the audience while Land spoke Tuesday, said in an interview Wednesday that their intention with the petition was not to claim that each of the signatories wanted county water but that they were in support of the others receiving water.
“(The petitioners) were just people that supported us,” Waddell said. “We did not know their procedure.”
Land said he also checked on the water quality in the wells in the area and found that there had been no recent contamination, only low yields of between two-and-a-half and four gallons per minute. If there had been contamination, Land said there could have been a possibility for grant funding.
Public Works Director Jerry Austin sent out letters to the 10 eligible households of those who signed the petition. The letters informed them of the distance from the end of the waterline to their residence, and based on that calculated how much it would cost them to tap on. The costs were as high as a one-time payment of $19,000, and for Mormon, who lives 2,000 feet from the waterline, it would cost about $100,000, according to Austin.
These calculations are based on a cost of $45 per foot of waterline and the need to pay back the cost of installing the line within the designated time frame of 10 years.
The responsibilities for a homeowner when applying for a waterline extension are outlined in Section 10-3 of the Richmond County Water Regulations, which have been in place since 1997. The regulations read: “The petitioners are responsible for all costs associated with installing waterlines, including materials, construction, and applicable tap fees, to serve the lots within the requested service area.”
This section of the county policy also stipulates that the area served must include enough new customers to allow the county to pay back the cost of installation within 10 years through utility payments and this variable tap fee based on distance from the line. County water service is an enterprise fund, which means that no tax dollars are used, only the revenue generated from utility payments.
Residents requesting water can work together to pay the fee to supply the water to the area.
“The calculation is based strictly on residents petitioning for water: the more individuals that agree to sign on, the cheaper the construction cost is to each individual resident,” Land said in an email. “If we aren’t good stewards of our enterprise fund, we won’t be in the water business very long.”
