Minutes - 20060216 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

of the lift station, but the data was incorrect. He said that they are optimistic as of this morning that the City of Mebane and County Engineer Paul Thames have worked through a solution with the lift station. There is still an issue with expansion of sewer lines going into the lift station. He said that they need to reconfigure the financing so that they do not use the grant money far the school section of the sewer, but for the Buckhornlcentral Efland part of sewer system. This part has an outstanding amount of money required of about $1.6 million. He said that they are proposing a way to address the part of the water and sewer system that goes to the school with County CIP funding that eliminates having to go through the federal process. One possibility of funding is to delay monies for conservation easements and other County projects, and spend money this year on the school part of the water and sewer and then restoring the funding next year. The water and sewer must be in the ground by July. Chair Jacobs asked for a description of what would go on south of the interstate and the Buckhornlcentral Efland aspect. County Engineer Paul Thames showed the areas on map #6. He said that the line that was too small was approximately 1,200 feet, and the proposal is to replace the 8-inch line with a 12-inch line. This will address the concern as to the capacity of the line. Chair Jacobs asked if this was previously in Mebane's master plan for its systems and Paul Thames said not that he knows of, but he thinks that they had to have known that it needed to be upgraded eventually. Chair Jacobs asked if Mebane has an adopted master plan and Paul Thames said that he did not know. John Link said that they would find out. Commissioner Halkiotis verified with Paul Thames that the State permitted this line when it was created. Paul Thames said that his personal belief is that Construction Loans and Grants have the EPA looking over their shoulder all the time and they have a much stricter approach. Unfortunately, now that this has been flagged, they have to da something about it. The way Mebane has dealt with it is that they found some problems in their force main, they fixed that and increased the rating capacity of the pump station from 350 gallons/minute to 500 gallons/minute, and they are proposing to disconnect one pump station from another one and have it pump straight into the force main line. He said that this will address their problem here, but Mebane still has to do a modeling study for Construction Loans and Grants. The other thing that they have worked out with Construction Loans and Grants as of this morning is that when the proposal and timetable are accepted by Construction Loans and Grants, then they will give the County authority to advertise the school project. Several clarifying questions were asked of the County Commissioners and answered by Paul Thames. Paul Thames said that he is assuming that this will move forward and they hope to be able to advertise the project by the end of next week. Chair Jacobs asked about guaranteeing that Mebane will get the work done in a timely manner and said that there mayor may not be an issue of funding. John Link said that Mebane might want the County to fund half of it and Paul Thames said that it would probably just be for the 1,200-foot line and not for the pump station. Commissioner Halkiotis suggested that the Manager contact the Manager of Mebane to see what Mebane is going to do. He asked if the County had a responsibility to do a line improvement that far away from its proposed project. Chair Jacobs said that this is why he raised the issue of whether Mebane already had an adopted master plan, because if this was scheduled to be upgraded anyway, then they have already identified