Bailey nixes wastewater treatment link to Wilson

BAILEY — Following months of negotiations, a proposed wastewater treatment union between Bailey and the city of Wilson has dissolved.

Mayor Pro Tem Walter Wells informed residents of the decision during a special meeting of Bailey’s elected officials last week while outlining a new agenda that would use $14.5 million in grant money to remove the town from a state-imposed sewer capacity moratorium in force since July 15, 2003 — a move that has muted growth in the area.

“The original intent for utilizing these funds was to design and construct a pump station and force main to pump our wastewater to the city of Wilson,” Wells said of the plan’s first draft, scrapped when Wilson officials elected to impose a $5.8 million capacity fee.

“The total cost to do everything we had planned at that point was $19,240,000,” Wells said.

The fee would have helped whisk through all but roughly $2 million of Bailey’s project funding, Wells noted, while doing nothing to reconstitute existing sewer lines and water infrastructure.

A REQUEST, OLD FINDINGS

With few outs, the commissioners asked the state to allow Bailey room to reallocate the funds, awarded through the American Rescue Plan Act.

While possible, the state noted, approval was far from automatic.

As a decision loomed, Wells reviewed a 2021 study completed by Mack Gay Associates for a 10-year capital improvement plan — one that would have severely punished town water and sewer customers.

“And at the end of the 10-year frame,” Wells said, “the projected cost of an average water bill was going to be $142 a month. And that was at the end of the 10 years. It wasn’t going to stay down the whole time … every year, it was a 22.5% increase in water rates if we funded it over a 10-year period.”

MOVING PARTS UNDERNEATH

Much of the infrastructure roaming under Bailey’s streets is approaching 60 years old, and in some cases, is material-dated beyond that span.

“It is a dated infrastructure, “ Wells remarked, “and it has a lot of things that needs to, needs to have done … those sections of terra cotta piping … that helps cause the infiltration issues that we have.”

In addition to clay, the town has a 2-inch metal water line that will need to be replaced along Pine Street, which houses Bailey Elementary School, and a cast iron pipe under Main Street.

THE ROAD AHEAD

In subsequent remarks to the state, the town proposed comprehensive water and sewer changes, with plans to address “age-failing infrastructure assets.”

Further, Wells noted, “the town proposes to rehabilitate, renovate existing assets and its land application wastewater treatment plant facility to include, but not limited to, your edging rehabilitation to the existing lagoon, replacement of the existing intake meter, rehabilitation of existing bar screen fencing and access drive to the site.”

Also mentioned was a waste treatment facility dedicated to the southern part of Nash County, which would discharge treated water into the Tar River near Southern Nash Middle School.

Bailey is pursuing a $400,000 planning grant to explore the proposal’s feasibility.

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