Dear editor:
TRANSPARENCY – PLEASE! The taxpayers have a right to know.
At their June 3rd meeting the Putnam County BOC awarded a contract to re-locate the County waterline between Bethel Church Road and the Rock Eagle Tech Park. The re-location is necessary due to the widening of Hwy 441. However, Commissioner McElhenney included in his motion to have the contract include an UNNECESSARY add-on to extend a 12 inch waterline across Hwy 441 to dead-end in the Oconee National Forest at an additional cost to the taxpayers of over $100,000. WHY?
The reason, expressed by several commissioners, was to get water to the west side of Hwy 441 for FUTURE DEVELOPMENT. What future development on the west side of Hwy 441 did the commissioners have in mind? Perhaps another 20 acres of storage buildings?
North of the proposed waterline, virtually all of the properties are National Forest, State owned (Rock Eagle) or in Conservancy and not likely to be “developed” in the foreseeable future. To the South, there are a few private properties but these are more easily reached by extending a waterline north from the City at a much lower cost.
What was mentioned was that the proposed waterline MIGHT add more EPWSA customers from existing properties - Rock Eagle, Rose Acre egg farm - not from new development.
Could it be that the real purpose of the waterline is to connect south to the existing City waterline forming a “loop” to improve the flow and pressure in the existing EPWSA system. It should be noted that EPWSA already plans to spend $3 million, including $600,000 of County taxpayer money, primarily to create “loops” in their existing system.
Whether the real reason for the “waterline to nowhere” is to add more EPWSA customers or to improve the EPWSA system, this is clearly an EPWSA project and, as stated by Chairman Webster, should be paid for by EPWSA and not the County taxpayers – most of whom will never benefit from the project.
Steve Hersey Taxpayer