WINNSBORO – The long awaited Technical Analysis of Options
report for the Fairfield Joint Water and Sewer System’s (FJWSS) wastewater
treatment system was finally presented in public Tuesday evening during a
meeting of the FJWSS’s technical committee.
The report, compiled by the FJWSS’s contract engineer, Bill
Bingham, owner of American Engineering, was intended to provide information
that could assist the FJWSS commission in determining the best location to
build and discharge a new wastewater treatment plant for Fairfield County.
There are two primary options – one would discharge into Cedar Creek; the other
would discharge into Broad River.
Bingham’s report was supposed to analyze the costs and
timeline for designing, planning, permitting and constructing each of the two
wastewater treatment plant options.
However, at the end of the hour-and-a-half meeting Tuesday
night, there was little consensus as to the accuracy and objectivity of the
findings reported in Bingham’s 150+ page tome.
Several cost estimates over the last two years for the two
options placed the Cedar Creek option at around $45 million and 2-1/2 years to
construct, and the Broad River option at
anywhere from $75 – $90 million and five to six years to construct.
Bingham’s report, however, puts the cost of a BNR system
discharging into the Broad River option at about the same cost as a higher
level of treatment MBR system discharging into Cedar Creek. In one scenario,
Bingham said an MBR system discharging into Cedar Creek would cost $41.9
million, and a BNR system discharging into the Broad would cost about $42.3
million, a difference of only about $1 million.
In another scenario – using larger pipe – Bingham says the
Broad River option would actually save about $20 Million over expanding the
plant at Big Cedar Creek.
While the report has been prepared for almost two months,
Bingham did not turn it over to the committee until just a few days before the
Tuesday night meeting, causing committee members to say they had not had
adequate time to study any breakdown of Bingham’s reported costs.
While some construction time estimates have put the
completion of a wastewater treatment plant at Cedar Creek at 2-1/2 years and
the Broad from five to six years, Bingham’s report has the construction time
for each plant option at about four years – to be competed in 2027.
Both Crager and Taylor reminded Bingham that time was of the
essence.
“It is critical to have the plant up and running, as soon as
possible, in order to be able take advantage of potential growth, and to insure
that the new plant will have the customer base needed to make it self-sufficient,”
Taylor said.Committee Chair Kyle Crager, an engineer, and Taylor, both
committee members, poked holes in Bingham’s cost estimates, routes for the
pipelines and sources of available funding for the water system.
Both Bingham and the committee accused the other of bias.
“There is some cost in the connector project that favors the
Broad River option,” Crager said of Bingham’s report. “But it does not appear
to be reflected in your current draft [report].”
Crager said that, in his opinion, the report was a bit
biased.
“I think everyone in this room is interested in knowing what
the best option is, and we’re hoping to get there,” Crager said. “But, in my
opinion, we’re not there yet.”
Bingham, said several times during the meeting that he was
not biased, but had been instructed two years ago by the previous council to
build a plant that would discharge into the Broad.
“That was my instructions,” Bingham said. “I was told to go
to the Broad.”
Taylor said engineering and facts should drive the decision
of where to take the discharge, not politics.
“Maybe we could have a third party, non-biased person, not
someone looking to get future work, to just give an assessment, evaluate the
facts, what’s been studied so far, with politics set aside.”
Crager agreed that an objective, non-local should be
considered. He said a qualified person shouldn’t take more than three to four
weeks to review Bingham’s report.
Asked by Crager where the committee wanted to go from here,
Johnson leaned toward sticking with Bingham.
“We’ve spent $1.8 million and here we’re saying, ‘Let’s go
another route and get somebody else.’ But the county has to pay the bill,”
Johnson said. “Are we doubting him [Bingham]? We don’t need to keep coming up
with other avenues.”
The committee voted 4-0 to recommend to the FJWSS board to
seek out a third party to help them determine the best location to build and
discharge a new wastewater treatment plant for Fairfield County, including a
cost/time analysis for constructing the facility.
The FJWSS will next meet on Tuesday, June 27, at the Midlands Tech campus in Winnsboro.
Bingham’s complete report can be found here or downloaded below.
