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COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: I’m new to council; I’m new to Cottageville, relatively speaking. This decision is really out of our hands; it’s squarely in the public hands, yea or nay on this.
Our police force has been saddled with many years with the responsibility of providing revenue for the town. That’s really not the job of the police force. Their job is to provide services and protection for the town and the businesses.
Cottageville is going to grow one way or the other and it can be dictated to us by the county or we can be proactive and take the reins of our own future, dictate our own growth.
I can’t see where having additional businesses in town, supermarket, pharmacy, services that we’ve always wanted. I know I would rather drive down the road a mile and a half to pick up my groceries than have to go to Walterboro or Summerville. I can’t see how that would be bad for Cottageville.
Yes, it’s a lot of money. Yes, there’s a lot of unknowns. I, like you, don’t want to have somebody coming to my front door and say, all right, we’re stopping you well up, you have to connect. I don’t want that.
On the other side, when the county does bring it through and we have no choice and to think that you have a choice in things that we will not have a choice if the county comes and does it. That’s gonna be a much worse situation. I would rather see Cottageville chart it’s own destiny than have it dictated to us.
This is a scary time. We’re sitting in a time now that’s very, very scary and it is a lot of hard choices and decisions. I think that the zoning that we talked about just a couple of weeks ago and part of me says, you know, you can put whatever zoning plan you want in to effect, if you don’t have facilities you’re not gonna have the growth anyway so it’s a moot point but if we put the facilities in where we can then dictate the growth and how it’s done I think Cottageville can really grow and could grow very well and be a benefit to everyone that lives here and I know those that have been here a long time are scared about it but it’s coming, one way or the other and I’d rather see us kind of be in charge of it, frankly.
MAYOR WHITE: Thank you.
Anyone else?
COUNCIL MEMBER COOK: I mean I’m gone speak.
You know, I’ve lived here all my life. Most everybody who’s sitting in this audience here knows me. You know, irregardless of what you think, I’m for it. I think we need it. I think we need — We need to grow in a better way for — to the benefit of the town.
I don’t like the idea of having another bill. You know why? But it’s just like what Rick said, if the county comes through we’re not gonna have a choice but which would you rather have? Would you rather vote on it to have it your way or not have a say-so whatsoever? Because either way it’s coming but the thing about it is that no matter what we say you are the people. You’re the ones who’s gonna have the voice to speak and you get to decide what you want. Not us. I get to participate because of my vote.
I believe that we do need it. It concerns me, listening to what Bob and Richard had, you know, had to say in regard to fire protection. There’s a lot of times, I mean in my lifetime I have seen houses go down here real fast, especially the older homes. When they catch fire they’re gone.
So in my aspect I am for it. I mean I’ll be the first one to tell you, so.
COUNCIL MEMBER THOMAS: I’ve lived here. I’m like Charles; I’ve lived here all of my life. In the last few years I’ve been on several boards and commissions and different meetings and such all around the county and telling about the growth that’s gonna be coming into Colleton County and if you went to any of those public meetings when they made those presentations you’ll see where Cottageville is at in that growth. We are right in the middle of it. We are right on it and it’s just gonna be coming from Summerville way; it’s just gonna be coming through here and we have to prepare ourselves for that.
If we don’t do something now they’re gonna come in here and tell us what we can do and what we can’t do. So now is the time for us to bite the bullet and do what needs to be done where we can protect our ownself and do things the way we want to. We don’t want Colleton County to come in here and putting in water. If we’re gone do it we want to do it ourself and we need this and this town is gonna grow by hook or crook and I think it’s important that we realize that and we do set the groundwork where we can get the right kind of businesses established in the town where the town will grow and we can make something. It can still be Cottageville and it can still have a small-business atmosphere and just be the same town it was.
It will have growth but it will be the kind of constructive and people that care about it and want to see the town and how it looks and see that it grows.
So I’m like Charlie, I’m for it. A few years ago I wouldn’t have said that but in the last five years I have come to this realization that we have got to move forward, we cannot stay the same and so, like Charlie said, it’s up to y’all when you go to the poll to be voting your conviction and I urge you to vote whether it’s for it or not but I urge you to vote and, and I think that putting the water in, I know it’s a lot to it and I know it’s scary but that’s life.
That’s life, that’s the way we live and you have to do what you think is the best thing and you just can’t look back on it; you have to keep moving forward but I urge you to vote and vote your conscious whether it be yes or no and — But, personally, I’m gonna vote yes.
COUNCIL MEMBER STRICKLAND: I just have a very short speech.
Y’all all know what you want to do; y’all will be the ones to decide. So the ones that don’t want it need to turn out; the ones that want it need to turn out so we each go vote and that’s gone be the determination.
MR. RICO: Mr. White, can I ask you a question?
MAYOR WHITE: Sir, I’ll get to public participation.
MR. RICO: Well, water-sewerage, you gonna have a treatment plant with this? A water-sewerage treatment plant?
MAYOR WHITE: I’ll go ahead and let the engineers — We will have a water treatment plant and I’ll let the engineers go ahead and speak on that.
MAYOR WHITE: Micky Seabrook.
MR. SEABROOK: I’m Micky Seabrook. I live in Mt. Pleasant and I’m a civil engineer. I’ve been working with public water and sewer systems for over 30 years and I — Mayor White had asked me to talk about a couple of things related to these water and sewer systems.
We’ve done work with several small towns. We’re working right now for the Town of Awendaw. They’re in the process of developing a water system as we speak. It’s nearly completed and they used several grant and loan programs to finance the water system, construction of the water system.
The fact that — Well, and Awendaw does not have — has not passed a referendum to get in to the sewer business; they’re strictly in water right now but I’d like to talk for a minute about something that the mayor already mentioned and that’s some of the — some of the opportunities for getting funds from other sources.
He mentioned the Rural Utility Service. They have grants and loans. Their loan rates are 2.75 to 4 ½ percent. I don’t think that the Town of Cottageville would qualify for the 2.7 percent because it’s tied into median household income and some other factors.
The state revolving fund rates are 2 percent to 3.25 percent. Those are really low interest rates and these projects could be funded for 30 or 40 years. So you would have that length of time to pay back at, let’s just say 3 percent, take it down the middle.
Some of the steps that would have to occur if the referendum passes, the town would be designated as a water quality management agency. That’s on the sewer side.
The local council of governments, any time anyone applies for a permit to construct a new sewer system on an extension to an existing sewer system the LCOG council of governments has to say yes, this is in conformance with an existing plan. That plan for the town does not exist. That would be the first step.
The process for applying for some of these grants and loans can be long and tedious. Awendaw, for instance, started their process in early, early 2000 range and, as I said, the process is just coming to completion now. That was not typical in my experience. Usually on the Rural Utility Service program it takes about, about three years to get from the initial steps through a construction project.
Now, your project would be considerably smaller than Awendaw’s. They’re a long, drawn out town and they’ve got a lot of challenges that I don’t think you would have, just from being in the national forest, had to get permits from the national forest and that took time but, anyway, there would
be — There would be some process to go through.
Water or sewer of course you’d have to get permits from DHEC. Those permits would have to be worked in conjunction with the Coastal Resources Management Division of DHEC. There’re any wetlands involved the corps of engineers would be involved so there’s several agencies, state and federal, that you would have to deal with before you could get a construction permit from DHEC.
The — Someone mentioned a little while ago some existing wells and I’m not familiar with any of the particulars of those wells but one of the problems that I’ve dealt with many times with DHEC is the construction techniques used to build those wells. If they’re not grouted properly or if they’re not cased properly or if they don’t meet current standards DHEC may or may not, and it’s most often will not approve the use of an existing well that doesn’t meet modern criteria.
I’ve had to work in the last two years on four very small water systems where DHEC, because of the lack of records, said your water system is not suitable, drill a new well.
I don’t, I can’t tell you today what a system might cost. It certainly is opportunity for phasing either water or sewer system or you could put water in the center part of town or some other part that you choose and expand the system as the town grows or as the needs require.
Each time you do a new phase of course you’d have to go back through this permitting process with DHEC and these other agencies.
I think that one last thing I’d like to say is and the fire department did not speak to me about this but in all these places where I’ve worked on water systems before the benefit to the owners of the property in fire insurance rates has been significant when a pressurize water system is in place. So I think that’s an item that you should strongly consider and if the mayor would like, I’ll be glad to try to answer any questions.
MR. MICHAEL: What it cost after you get a well and build the tank? Roughly what the price would be?
MR. SEABROOK: I can — The wells that we had drilled in Awendaw, which were the most recent ones I’m familiar with, were 8 inch wells, 250 feet deep and the wells with the pump cost about a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.
MR. MICHAEL: That’s the well with the pump?
MR. SEABROOK: The well with the pump.
MR. MICHAEL: But that’s not including the tank?
MR. SEABROOK: No, sir. Would depend on -
MR. MICHAEL: Yeah, the tank, the cement and stuff like that.
MR. SEABROOK: An elevated tank would be in the neighborhood of about a half a million dollars. That would give you the pressure that you need for firefighting capabilities.
And of course it would depend on the size of the tank. The tank at Awendaw is 200,000 gallons, which is a small tank by general standards but it was — They had put some more tank volume in there with the expectation that the town would grow and from what I understand, your population is somewhat smaller than Awendaw. So possibly a hundred thousand gallons, hundred and fifty thousand gallons. It would be something that would have to be decided during the design phase.
MR. MICHAEL: That’s the labor and everything?
MR. SEABROOK: Yes, sir.
The Awendaw tank, to erect the tank, to fabricate and erect the tank was $664,000 for a 200,000 gallon tank.
MR. MICHAEL: Right, and then the treatment plant, bringing in, separating then treating the water and everything.
MR. SEABROOK: Well, the water side treatment may be as simple as chlorination.
MR. MICHAEL: Yeah, chlorination but you’ve got to separate the ashes, you know what I’m talking about, to fertilize it.
MR. SEABROOK: You’re talking about on the waste water side.
MR. MICHAEL: Yeah, waste water side.
MR. SEABROOK: A lot of that would depend on where is it located, what kind of discharge is permitted by DHEC, most probably some type of land application where you’d have to spray.
That’s really a question I can’t answer right now because we wouldn’t know — We wouldn’t know the size and we wouldn’t know the land requirements for it.
MR. MICHAEL: Well, should be running about between 9 and $15 million or better.
MR. SEABROOK: I don’t know that it would be that high but it would be — It certainly wouldn’t be — Again, it would just depend on how you phased it. You built a system for the entire town at one time it probably would be in the 5 to $10 million dollar range, yes.
MAYOR WHITE: Anyone else would like to ask Micky questions?
MR. ACKERMAN: Yeah.
Get a grant, kind of hard time paying for it here. We need — We do need a grocery store, a small place that we can buy our groceries and things right here and on Sand Hill it’s already been approved by DHEC, a well for trailers in there. There’s a large tank in there now and one more well put in there for 7500 gallon pressure tank to it should supply community there whatever we need and that’s right, it ain’t in Cottageville but it ain’t a mile out of Cottageville and a well 250 feet deep here, you won’t pump water out.
MR. SEABROOK: No, I realize that. I was just comparing that to what -
MR. ACKERMAN: You go down to Ridgeland and pump 3,000 gallons a minute down there.
I drilled wells all my life and I know pretty well the areas, how much can pump and we drilled over 3,000 wells in our lifetime. We drill anywhere from 3 inch well to a 36 inch.
MR. SEABROOK: You probably drilled some wells for my father.
MR. ACKERMAN: Drilled wells all over this country. We went as far as Orangeburg to the coast, from Hilton Head Island to Myrtle Beach and a few places in North Carolina.
COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: I have a question.
MR. SEABROOK: Yes, sir.
COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: And maybe you know this, maybe you don’t. After you finish the project what have you seen, generally speaking, the benefits of those projects?
MR. SEABROOK: The benefits to the towns?
COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: To the towns, yeah, that went through this expense, went through this process, what have you seen the outcome of that?
MR. SEABROOK: I guess the best example was the Bulls Bay Rural Water District. In the early ‘70’s the town of Mt. Pleasant refused to serve subdivisions outside the town limits with water so those people got together and through referendum created a rural water district. Initially they served some of the — some of the subdivisions right outside town and some of the rural areas that were close to town and for a number of years they relied on rural development grants and loans.
Mr. Ackerman mentioned the fact about grants and I agree that grants would probably be absolutely necessary to make this go. So those people had a safe supply water. They also had fire protection. The Town of Mt. Pleasant would not fight fires outside the town limits so these people’s houses catch on fire, they basically burned down.
As time went on and the system grew, both by people connecting to existing lines in other neighborhoods and communities wanting water, they were able to generate a profit and got to the point where the Town of Mt. Pleasant suddenly decided that they wanted them. In fact, they merged with the Town of Mt. Pleasant water system after about 20 years of existence. So it became a moneymaking proposition.
It didn’t make money at the very beginning but because of the grants and the low interest loans they were able to continue. So the benefits were the people had some safe drinking water, fire protection and their property values were increased. So those are at least three that I can think of.
COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: And have you seen towns that voted no on a referendum like this, have you seen what their future held for them?
MR. SEABROOK: I can’t — I can’t — I can’t comment on that because by the time we’re involved the decision has been made and, and most of my experience has been in the three counties of Charleston, Dorchester and Berkeley. We have done work in lower Colleton County but I can’t really answer that question because I haven’t been involved.
MR. CARD: Mr. Seabrook.
MR. SEABROOK: Yes.
MR. CARD: What’s been your experience, been through the history of your work where a water district’s being established and then the county coming and forcing annexation and taking over the water system?
MR. SEABROOK: Well, there’s a good answer to that. If you — If you apply for and receive a loan and grant, well, a loan particularly, from the Rural Utility Service – used to be called Farmers Home Administration – part of the documents that you would sign as the town, town officials you will protect your service area and the federal government has stopped Charleston CPW from encroaching on the service area of James Island Public Service District because as James Island grew Charleston coveted James Island just like Mt. Pleasant coveted Bulls Bay and they started chipping away at the service area.
Well, the federal government stepped in and said this is not a local issue, this is not a state court issue, this is a federal court issue and both of those big monsters that wanted to eat up the smaller guy got stopped before it got to federal court. In both cases they settled. Bulls Bay said, well, for the good of the community we’ll merge with Mt. Pleasant Water Works.
MR. CARD: But that was their choice?
MR. SEABROOK: That was their choice.
Mt. Pleasant Water Works, therefore, had to pay back the loan immediately to Farmers Home Administration.
Charleston CPW and James Island came to some settlement agreement that did not get to court and although there were some parts of the James Island system that were consumed by CPW, they basically got a cease and desist order and they made an agreement of how they would divvy up what was left so that the federal government — And that would be a good, good, strong reason for getting a rural development — a Rural Utility Service loan and grant, that you’ve got the backing of the federal courts to protect your service.
MR. CARD: I just want to make sure after going to all the trouble and all the expense that Colleton County proper doesn’t come in and annex the system. By force.
MR. SEABROOK: If you’ve got those loans they could not do that without your permission and, again, like the Bulls Bay situation, then Colleton County I think would have to pay back the loans immediately and as well as – I didn’t mention this – they had to agree — They would have to agree to all the conditions.
The letter of conditions that one would get would be about 20, 25 pages long. Some of it pertains to legal issues, engineering, government, et cetera, but the body that would take over must agree to follow those terms, no discrimination, no this. Yes, there’s a whole list of things.
MR. CARD: So the precedent has already been established here in this state?
MR. SEABROOK: Yes, long, long history back, yes.
MR. DEWITT: Mr. Seabrook, many, many years ago Charleston and the communities surrounding it, if you’re in an area that did not have fire protection you could pay to have an engine sent to your property and, if I’m not mistaken, was a hundred and twenty-five dollars an hour. Now, this is way back.
Now, Charleston itself has sent units all over South Carolina, North Charleston. We have sent to Mt. Pleasant, St. Andrews, North Charleston, you name it, Goose Creek. So we did have a mutual aid agreement and they’ll send right now from Charleston to Cottageville. They wouldn’t hesitate. So it wasn’t agreed that you could get service from another community but you wanted to pay a hundred and twenty-five dollars an hour this way.
I think this has all been abolished now and they work on a mutual aid agreement.
MR. SEABROOK: I’m not familiar with -
MR. DEWITT: I am.
MR. SEABROOK: Yes, sir.
MR. DEWITT: I know something about what I’m talking about.
MR. SEABROOK: Well, I know about mutual aid agreements but I’m not really -
MR. CARD: So I mean lot of people, something they don’t know, that we did have an agreement that if Cottageville had a fire they could just go and that’s offered in every town.
MR. ADDISON: George Addison.
Mr. Seabrook, in your experience have you seen a county force it’s water system on a municipality that didn’t want it?
MR. SEABROOK: Well, there have been cases. I don’t know that force is the right word. There’s been this tension. I know for awhile on the sewer side Summerville CPW wanted to develop their — expand their own sewer system and they were getting pressure from the council of governments to not expand their system because the designated management agency was Dorchester County and they — I was involved in that. That was 30 years ago, almost 30 years ago.
Summerville applied for some loans and grants and because the council of governments in Charleston would not say that they were authorized in that particular case to do what they wanted to do, that Dorchester County was authorized, they didn’t get those grants. So they raised the money themselves, did it anyway.
So there’s — I maintain, this is the third on where there was friction and in all cases, as far as I know, they were worked out without actually having somebody forcibly take a system away from somebody and I think mainly it was because there were debts involved.