Banks Co. Wants Toccoa Water

Banks County is reaching out to the city of Toccoa, wanting to purchase water.

Toccoa City Commissioners discussed the proposal of selling water to Banks County at a work session on Monday.

According to Toccoa City Manager Billy Morse, this is a topic the city has talked about before with Banks County and it has returned to the table.

“Banks would like to buy up to one million gallons a day, but the existing lines in the connection area can only handle 100,000 to 200,000 gallons a day,” said Morse. “They would like to start buying that amount of water a day from us and work with us to upgrade our infrastructure so that one day in the near future, a few years out, we can in fact sell them one million gallons a day.”

He went on to say that there are financial and other benefits to selling water to Banks County.

“We have the capacity,” said Morse. “Our plant runs more efficiently at the higher rating and we have what are called blow-offs in that area where we have to waste water to keep the chemicals and chlorine levels adequate in the water system out that way, so that would eliminate those blow-offs.”

Morse said that under the proposal the city is currently looking at putting forth, it would pay for the 53 feet of pipe needed to connect the systems and Banks County would burden much of the cost by installing the meter vault.

According to Morse, the city’s cost would be minimal.

Under the proposal, the city would guarantee 100,000 gallons a day but note that it could provide up to 240,000 gallons a day.

City officials said providing the full million gallons a day would require more extensive upgrades that are being estimated for cost at this time.

Toccoa City Commissioner Gail Fry said before committing to anything, the city should make sure it is secure in all of its permitting regarding drawing water from Lake Yonah, noting she thought those permits might be up for renewal soon.

“I want to make sure that we have that and that is approved before we start promising other people water and from what we talked about a couple of years ago, that is coming up soon,” said Fry of the Lake Yonah permit renewal.

Meanwhile, City Commissioner David Austin said he supports selling the water, provided the price is right.

“I am all for selling water, but I just want to make sure we have a good return price-wise to benefit us,” said Austin.

Morse said as part of the work to prepare a final proposal, it would look at what rate to charge and put forth a proposed number.

He went on to say that city staff will continue working on the proposal to bring back to commissioners.

Toccoa already sells water to Franklin County and Habersham County.

Morse noted that Franklin County does sell water to Banks County already, adding that can benefit Toccoa since Franklin County gets some water from Toccoa.