Pinehurst village leaders think it’s time that the county spent some of that money on what they say are urgent needs in the utility system serving the growing village. They say the county hasn’t addressed the needs in nearly two years.
County Manager Steve Wyatt said Monday that the county has enough money to do the top two priorities listed by Pinehurst leaders. That includes replacing an existing sewage pumping arrangement for Pinehurst No. 6 and Village Acres and to provide better water supply and pressure for firefighting to the Pinewild area.
Wyatt said he hopes to address those needs before the county commissioners’ annual retreat in November. But he said the county must give careful consideration to how any improvements that are made in Pinehurst will affect the entire system because of interconnections between the various towns and communities on it.
Pinehurst resident Douglas Middaugh asked the county’s temporary finance director how much “retained earnings” are available from the county for capital improvements. Caroline Xiong, the interim finance officer, replied in an e-mail to Middaugh on July 26 that total retained earnings have gone from $5.4 million in 2001 to possibly $10 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30.
In 2002, the retained earnings were $6.4 million. It jumped to $9.7 million in 2003, according to a copy of the e-mail that Middaugh gave The Pilot.
The earnings include the net assets left for capital improvements on the various parts of the county-owned system, which also includes Vass, Seven Lakes, the Carolina, Hyland Hills and Niagara. Pinehurst is the single largest revenue producer for the system, because it has about 80 to 85 percent of the water and sewer customers.
The 2004 total is a “rough estimate,” according to the e-mail. The exact number won’t be known until the county’s outside financial audit is completed sometime this fall, according to Wyatt.
“That’s no surprise,” Pinehurst Councilman Doug Lapins said, referring to the big jump.
Pinehurst wants the money to be used quickly — at least for the county to respond on plans to use it — for its utility system priorities Village Manager Andy Wilkison outlined in a July 14 letter to Wyatt.
Wyatt said “duct tape and super glue will only go so far. That’s not what we’re looking for.”
He said he is looking for a long-range plan for the regional system to enable it to serve the customers adequately for the next 25-50 years. He plans to prepare a capital improvement plan for the commissioners to look at in their fall retreat.
The county will need assistance from an engineer to help prepare the plan, Wyatt said.
Wyatt said he is currently reviewing the utility needs for Pinehurst.
“If you do ‘X,’ you also have to consider how that affects ‘Y,’” Wyatt said. “This is a system. You can’t think about one thing independently. One part of the system affects another part.”
Lapins said the county utility department’s retained earnings have continued to increase because the county hasn’t spent money on capital improvements in a long time.
During the 18 months that the sale of the system from the county to Pinehurst village was pending, the county spent no money to repair and improve the water and sewer assets serving Pinehurst, village leaders have said.
“Chairman Michael Holden publicly made the comment, ‘why should I put new tires on a used car if I’m going to sell it?’” Lapins said. “They simply stopped any capital improvements.”
But Pinehurst leaders have grumbled for years that the county hasn’t spent retained earnings that are available to do such things as dig new wells for Pinehurst so that the water supply can keep up with rampant population growth.
“Those top priority issues on No. 6 and Pinewild will be addressed prior to the Moore County Commissioners’ retreat,” Wyatt said in a Monday telephone interview. “If we’ve got what we identify as urgent needs, we’ll fast-track them.”
Wilkison wrote on July 14 that the No. 6 sewage disposal problems and the Pinewild water problems are public safety issues and could lead to the necessity of restricting homebuilding in those areas.
“I’ve got other concerns about the long-range capacity of the wastewater treatment plant,” he added. “The capacity of the plant is going to have to be increased and technically enhanced. The discharge limits are just going to get more strict on our capacity and compliance for wastewater treatment.”
Expanding the capacity of the plant that handles wastewater from all of southern Moore County municipalities would cost $17 million, according to the most recent estimate done two years ago.
The county owns the plant, and the users pay for the amount of their sewage that goes to the plant and is treated.
Other concerns are an adequate long-term water supply for the rapidly growing Seven Lakes area, That area could get water from Montgomery County through a connection with the North West Moore Water District, instead of through Pinehurst as was considered during utility sale negotiations.
The last major improvement to the Pinehurst part of the utility system was construction of an elevated water tank Cannon Park in 2002. Two more wells are on the drawing board.
