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Winnsboro – A revised contract between Winnsboro and the City of Columbia, which would have brought an additional 600,000 to 1 million gallons of water into the Winnsboro water system, did not come to fruition as anticipated at Columbia’s Dec. 18 City Council meeting.

Winnsboro Mayor Roger Gaddy said recently that the Town’s reservoir has not replenished as had been hoped after Columbia took the stress of supplying Blythewood off Winnsboro’s back last summer. That agreement, which took almost a year to materialize, allows for up to 400,000 gallons a day to flow from Columbia and into Blythewood, through Winnsboro’s water meters. Gaddy said he hopes an amended deal could be completed much quicker.

“We’re looking for more of a long-term relationship with Columbia to take the pressure off our reservoir,” Gaddy said.

But as of last week, the Town of Winnsboro had no news from Columbia on such an agreement. Steve Gantt, Columbia City Manager, said that he would be presenting a revised contract to City Council some time this month.

Fairfield County has agreed to spend the $400,000 to purchase pumping equipment, which will be necessary to feed water from Columbia and into the tower on Highway 34 near Ben Arnold.

The reservoir for the Town of Winnsboro’s water system is at an historical low, according to statements made at last week’s Intergovernmental meeting at the home of Ridgeway Mayor Charlene Herring, pushing Winnsboro to press the City of Columbia for aid.

Columbia already pumps up to 400,000 gallons per day through Winnsboro meters and into the Town of Blythewood, as part of an agreement finalized and put into action this summer. Winnsboro Town Council had hoped that agreement would help their reservoir recover from this summer’s extreme drought conditions, but nearly six months later that hasn’t happened. Winnsboro Town Manager Don Wood told members of the county’s various local governments at last week’s Intergovernmental meeting that the reservoir is lower than ever before and if Winnsboro doesn’t get relief by next spring, troubled times could be ahead.

Winnsboro Mayor Roger Gaddy confirmed the condition of the reservoir, but added that an agreement with Columbia is in the offing.

“We haven’t had the rain that we would like to have had,” Gaddy said.

Gaddy said Winnsboro has been negotiating with Columbia for an additional 600,000 to 1 million gallons of water per day to help replenish the reservoir, and under a 10-year contract that could be cancelled with 12 months’ notice.

“We’re looking for more of a long-term relationship with Columbia,” Gaddy said, “to take pressure off our reservoir until we can get more rain or until we can get hooked up with Lake Monticello.”

Because of the urgency of the situation, Gaddy said he is hoping the deal will move faster than the arrangement to bring water into Blythewood, which he said took nearly a year. Columbia City Council was scheduled to take the matter up at their Dec. 18 meeting. As of Dec. 21, Winnsboro had received no word from Columbia on the status of the amended contract.

Getting the water into Fairfield County will require some reverse pumping, Gaddy said, in order to feed the water into the tower on Highway 34 near Ben Arnold. Sources confirmed last week that Fairfield County Council had agreed to provide $400,000 for the necessary pumping equipment. With time allowed for engineering and the acquisition of permits from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, water could begin moving into the county in the next three or four months, Gaddy said.

“The County and the Town are working together to solve this problem,” Gaddy said. “And we think Columbia is on the same page and willing to alter our contract. Hopefully, the lines of communication are open and clear.”

Still, any long-term solution to the county’s future water needs lies with a regional water authority, the charter committee for which meets again Jan. 23. As of press time, only the Town of Winnsboro has made their intentions of joining the water authority clear. The Town of Ridgeway held their first public hearing on a resolution to join the authority Dec. 13. No members of the public attended. Fairfield County Council failed to take any action on a resolution to join during their final meeting of 2012, while Mid-County Water has yet to convert its governing body into a public body, which it must do before committing to the authority.

“They still have some time to do something,” Gaddy said of Fairfield County. “I think it is still important for them to be a part of it. It’s important for them and it’s important for the authority. I’m optimistic.”

County Council Chairman David Ferguson said after Council’s Dec. 3 work session that the County would like to see the bylaws before committing to the authority. During Ridgeway’s public hearing, Mayor Charlene Herring said Ridgeway wanted assurances that they could opt out of the authority if they found it to be cost prohibitive. Herring also said Ridgeway wanted to retain ownership of its water and sewer infrastructure.

Margaret Pope, an attorney with the Pope Zeigler law firm in Columbia, which is assisting with the formation of the water authority, assured Herring that any entity could opt out of the authority, as long as they did so before any debt was incurred by the authority.

In a conversation with The Voice last week, Pope addressed the County’s reluctance to sign up before bylaws are adopted.

“It’s kind of a chicken and egg situation for a lot of folks,” Pope said. “It’s up to Mayor Gaddy (the committee chairman) to have the meeting in January to get those bylaws done. That was going to be the purpose of the January meeting. Perhaps some people would like to see the bylaws passed first. I’ve seen it done both ways.”

The various public entities associated with the water authority will, before officially joining the group, have to pass a resolution, which requires two weeks’ worth of public notices in a local newspaper. Waiting until after the Jan. 23 meeting to start that process, as John Fantry, special counsel to the Town of Winnsboro, pointed out, will only delay the process.

“It could just lengthen the time it takes to establish the water authority,” Fantry said. “At least two of the public bodies must pass the resolution to join for the project to move forward.”

And while, as Mayor Gaddy said, there is still some time, there may not be as much of it as many would like. While the councils deliberate with caution, the state of the reservoir continues to decay on its own schedule.

Approximately 140 construction workers at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Jenkinsville received an early and unwelcome Christmas gift last week when they were laid off by the Shaw Group. Gentry Brann, Vice President Investor Relations and Corporate Communications at Shaw’s Baton Rouge, La. office, said the layoff was part of the natural ebb and flow of work at the site where two new reactors are being built, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) indicated that work has slowed after issues were detected with the construction of the concrete base on which much of the nuclear materials will rest once construction is completed.

“There is an issue with the rebar we’ve been discussing with them (Shaw),” Roger Hannah, a spokesperson for the NRC’s Region 2 office in Atlanta, said Friday. “(The layoff) is likely related to that. We had a meeting with them today (Dec. 21) to discuss inspection issues.”

Brann, responding to direct questions from The Voice about the relationship between NRC inspection issues and the layoffs, made no mention of the rebar concerns.

“As a standard practice within the construction industry, Shaw has completed several activities and some of the workforce is no longer needed,” Brann wrote in an email. “At this time Shaw has exhausted all options to locate other work activities for these individuals. As a result, Shaw will temporarily lay off about 140 civil construction workers. Those impacted will receive assistance from the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce.”

Hannah said the issue centered around the rebar (steel bars used to reinforce concrete) in the basemat (the concrete platform on which the reactors, the steam generators, pumps and other nuclear materials will rest) structure, the type of rebar used and the way the rebar was connected together.

“You have to have certain kinds of rebar,” Hannah said, “and the connections have to be done in a certain kind of way in order to meet NRC regulations. The original design met those standards, but they have deviated from the design.”

Hannah said that deviation may ultimately prove to be acceptable by the NRC, in which case Shaw and the plant’s owners would have to file for a license amendment request. It is also possible Shaw would be required to make changes in the rebar construction, Hannah said, which would be next to impossible once the concrete has been poured over it. Therefore, the pour has been suspended until the matter can be resolved, something that could take several months, Hannah said.

Hannah also said that NRC inspectors at the site, who have been monitoring construction since the project broke ground, have been aware of the rebar issue from the start.

“We’ve seen the issue all along,” Hannah said. “We have been having ongoing discussion with (Shaw) about it and we’ve expressed that we had concerns.”

What was not clear at press time, from Hannah or from Brann, was why the rebar construction deviated from the original design and why the rebar construction was allowed to continue if NRC inspectors saw a problem.

While Hannah said the rebar issue would take three to four months to resolve, a spokesperson for SCANA said last week that the project – including the basemat pour – was still on schedule. However, that there was no definite date for the basemat pour, he said.

“We don’t want to impact the scheduling negatively,” Hannah said, “but our overarching concern is to make sure things are done right. This may not be a problem, structurally; just a deviation from the original design.”

Tom Clements, a Columbia-based environmental activist who works with Nuclear Watch South, a member group of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, noted that Shaw is also experiencing problems at the Alvin W. Vogtle Plant near Waynesboro, Ga. Shaw is in the midst of a similar construction project there, and Clements said he learned last week that the basemat pour at Vogtle has also been delayed.

Vogtle, owned by Georgia Power, is, like V.C. Summer, constructing two new nuclear reactors through the Shaw Group.

“Construction at V.C. Summer is trailing behind Vogtle so they can see how things go,” Clements said. “IF there are any problems, they want them to come out at Vogtle so they can correct them before moving ahead at V.C. Summer.”

The basemat pour at Vogtle, originally scheduled for October, may not take place until February 2013, Clements said.

V.C. Summer is operated by S.C. Electric & Gas, which owns two-thirds of the plant. The S.C. Public Service Authority (Santee Cooper) owns the remaining one-third.

A 12-year-old boy was arrested earlier this month after an assistant principal at Fairfield Middle School found him to be in possession of marijuana on school grounds.

The juvenile, whose name is not being released, was arrested Dec. 4 at the school. The Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office said the boy was in possession of approximately 3 grams of marijuana, which the boy claimed was given to him by an older boy on the bus ride to school that morning.

J.R. Green, Superintendent of Fairfield County Schools, said the student was scheduled to appear before the District’s Disciplinary Officer, but the exact date of that hearing was not known at press time.