Agenda - 09-03-1996 - IX-C - Laserfiche WebLink

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8 in areas where urban services are judged to be generally undesirable but where provision of those services is deemed to be essential to the public good. In these and similar situations, the extension of sewer service is made more acceptable to policy makers because it is assumed that force mains cannot be tapped and will not therefore create utility-driven growth demand along the route of the force main between the urban service area and the satellite service area. Allowing the tapping of the Efland sewer force main could diminsh or even destroy any level of comfort in the theory that force mains will not create utility- driven growth. This dimished level of comfort may, in turn, make the extension of utility service to provide essential public facilities or to address public health issues more difficult. By letter dated 24 April 1996, County staff denied Mr. Lloyd's request that the County allow him access to sewer service by means of a service connection requiring the tapping the system force main. The letter outlined the staff recommendation that sewer service be provided to the car wash by means of private on-site pumping station and a small diameter force main extended to the McGowan Creek pumping station. The letter also cited current NCDOT policy requiring that the County accept ownership of all privately constructed force main that would be installed within NCDOT rights-of-way. Staff proposed to seek the BOCC's agreement for the County to accept that ownership. To date, the solution proposed in the April 24h letter has not been accepted by Mr. Lloyd. For Mr. Lloyd and others in Efland, issues related to the expansion of the Efland sewer system have become inextricably entangled with burden of dealing with State and the County requirements related to maintaining or expanding various facilities, businesses or residences, sewer system connections, septic and waste treatment system repairs, etc. While it may have been the problems and sewer service questions related to Mr. Lloyd's car wash that have stimulated renewed public interest in Efland sewer system issues, there are a number of other situations in the unsewered sections of Efland that are not completely dissimilar to the problems at the car wash. These situations include instances where environmental and health regulations require property owners to make expensive but ultimately ineffective or short-lived system repairs to failing treatment systems;where businesses and residences cannot be expanded because of an inability to accordingly expand existing waste treatment systems; and where waste treatment system failures go unreported and thus unregulated by regulatory authorities. The expansion of the Efland sewer system represents perhaps the sole effective and comprehensive option for addressing the waste treatment problems of central Efland. This reality becomes something of an aggregating factor in the uncertainty and confusion of Efland residents about the possible future of the system. The drawn out and convoluted process by which the Efland sewer system master plan was conceptually created and then integrated into the BOCC's 11/20/84 Efland sewer system creation resolution seems to be a primary source of confusion. Specifically, there is a great deal of controversy about the County's legal obligation- or lack of obligation-to extend the sewer system to central Efland at no cost to area residents who signed up for sewer service in 1984/85. Even the County staff's interpretation of the definition of"Phase I" as cited in McAdams report and the 11/20/84 resolution are disputed by Mr. Lloyd and others. Mr. Lloyd, and probably others as well, has a copy of a map - entitled "Figure 8B Phase I Immediate Plan" in the lower right comer of the map-from the March 12, 1984 revision of the McAdams report. By virtue of its title, this map is in contradiction with other maps in the 5