Agenda - 09-06-1994-IX-C - Laserfiche WebLink

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2 These existing agreements were developed under an assumption that one of two potential scenarios would be in effect. In the first scenario, it was assumed that: a) the project would funded through a combination of home owner financing and grant funding; b) the County would own the entire system, including the collection and individual step systems, as long as required by grant conditions, and would turn ownership over to OWASA as soon as those conditions were met; and c) OWASA would provide all the services necessary to meet system operational and management requirements. In the second scenario, it was assumed that: a) grant funding would not be available and all funding would come directly from the home owners; b) the County would not be involved in any manner in the ownership, operation or management of any part of the system; c) system construction would be the responsibility of the home owners although under the supervision of OWASA, which would take over system ownership on completion of construction; and d) the agreements that were developed specifically to provide the conditions necessary to meet grant funding requirements would become null and void. At its July meeting, the NC Environmental Management Commission (EMC) declined to award the grant sought by Orange County to fund the Piney Mountain project. County and OWASA staff assumed that the denial of grant funding terminated the County' s role in ownership and management of the Piney Mountain system. However, during the same time frame, the NC General Assembly was enacting new legislation - HB 1628 - enabling (but not requiring) the EMC to create a new procedure for providing grant funding to help replace the waste treatment systems - including Piney Mountain - abandoned by Northstate Utilities. The new legislation included a grant eligibility requirement that systems be owned and operated by a county, a county water and sewer district or a county sewer district. Insofar as any effort to obtain grant funds for the Piney Mountain was concerned, the grant eligibility requirements related to system ownership and operation remained essentially unchanged by the new legislation. At the present time, very little is known about details of the new process that the EMC may develop and employ to evaluate grant fund applications from the former Northstate waste treatment systems. The EMC is scheduled to discuss, revise and adopt temporary rules (drafted by DEM staff) for the process at its September 8th meeting. DEM staff has recommended that the EMC set a September 30th deadline for all grant funding applications to be evaluated under the new rules. There is currently no indication as to when grant funds could be made available, although HB 1628 specifies that funds must be awarded prior to 31 December 1994. Likewise, there is no certainty that the EMC will follow DEM recommendations or even participate in any process to provide funding for the Northstate systems.