Appomattox officials seek sit-down over water line

Appomattox Town Council wants to have a face-to-face meeting by Sept. 15 with county supervisors regarding the U.S. 460 water line. Additionally, council unanimously agreed Monday on six key points it wants to discuss with supervisors.

“I just think the sooner we do this, it gives them more than a 30-day window to prepare their points of contention and emphasis,” said Town Council member John Williams. “We know from general discussion here what our points of emphasis are going to be.”

Monday’s vote was in response to last month’s letter from the county laying out yet another water line offer, in which several details were noted, including a proposed friendly boundary adjustment so the town could absorb land slated for the Museum of the Confederacy.

Included in Town Council’s discussion points is expanding the town limits to include future growth areas along the U.S 460 corridor and, if the town were to join in on the water line, that it be involved during rate discussions with Campbell County Utilities and Services Authority, which sets the master rate for Appomattox County. Council also said it was open to reviewing its current water rate structure, in which customers outside town limits pay a higher rate, however any revisions would go through a council vote.

Town Council members said they all agreed that the town could easily contract with the county to maintain the U.S. 460 water line and provide billing through a long-term agreement. “I personally see us in a position to see us doing this for the county regardless of what our ultimate position is on the water line, whether we buy into it,” Williams said. “They have told us repeatedly that they are not in the water business and we are in the water business, and we know what we are doing.”A draft letter to be sent to the county also said it is “open to future consideration of purchasing a portion of its water supply from the county, through wholesale purchase, while maintaining the town’s full capacity to utilitize its wells.” This is in response to the county’s offer that the town only use its wells in an emergency.

“I don’t agree with that for the simple reason that a larger part of the water line and the advantage for having that is for us to have an alternative system and to cease operation of the wells, that’s a different water system, not an alternate,” said council member Jennifer Jamerson-Scruggs.

An advantage of that proposal would be using a mix of the water, she said, to help with ongoing high copper and zinc levels at both the town’s wastewater plants that is caused by the corrosive well water leaching tiny amounts of metal out of pipes in town buildings.

Council member Bryan Baine proposed that the town offer to extend sewer lines into areas along the U.S. 460 corridor that are served by the water line and absorbed into the town limits through a boundary adjustment down the road as a way to assist development. “For a few miles out of town, that area is going to urbanize fast,” he said.

County and town officials have been exchanging letters regarding the issue since November 2007. Representatives from the two bodies met in December to discuss the issue, but nothing came from the meeting.