Petition for Remission of Administrative and Legal Costs to the Orange County BOCC and OWASA

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July 27, 1995 Petition for Remission of Administrative and Legal Costs To the Orange County Board of Commissioners and the Board of Directors of OWASA from Piney Mountain Homeowners Association Piney Mountain subdivision off of Mount Sinai Road in the Rural Buffer of Orange County It has been two and one-half years since we, as Piney Mountain property owners, first learned that there were serious problems in renewing the operating permit for the low pressure pipe system("LPP System") in our community operated by North State Utility Corporation("North State"). Since then we have undertaken extensive efforts to resolve our wastewater system crisis. We have engaged engineers and soil scientists. We have coordinated complex negotiations and agreements with Chapel Hill, Durham, Carrboro, Orange County and OWASA to investigate the nature of the problems with the LPP System and to arrange for an alternate way of disposing of wastewater from our subdivision. We made appearances before the N.C. Utilities Commission and in fact filed the petition that led to the appointment of emergency operators for all North State LPP Systems throughout the State. We were the first group to go through the maze of cost-consuming requirements to seek and receive a grant from the Environmental Management Commission("EMC"). We filed a two lawsuits: one against the State of N.C., and a second against the subdivision's developer, engineer and North State. We are proud of our leadership role in helping our state and other communities to address the crisis in North State LPP systems. We are proud of our success as a community in solving our own wastewater crisis by marshaling human and financial resources, and in remaining united despite many disunifying factors. We are proud of the first-class wastewater system which we are contributing to OWASA, the value of which exceeds $500,000,including both new construction and repair of the existing collector system. We are proud that our specifications for the new system went far beyond statutory and regulatory requirements in including an odor control system which resulted in a total of$45,600 in extra construction costs (for the odor control system, road widening and an additional well). We are proud to contribute to the beauty of the Rural Buffer by obtaining a transfer from North State of the land previously used for nitrification fields and dedicating this land to open space, greatly exceeding the open space requirements of the Rural Buffer. We are proud of the good working relationships we have established with the staff of both Orange County and OWASA, and we thank them for their cooperation and good will in helping us through this process.