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Sossamon to lead TWSA board
By Carey King
Former Sylva town commissioner and two-year Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority board member Lynda Sossamon will now chair TWSA’s board, members decided Feb. 15.
The group also elected former Jackson County Health Department director Randall Turpin as its vice chairman.
Turpin has served on the board since Jackson County commissioners appointed him one of their two representatives in February of last year. Sylva leaders chose Sossamon as one of their two delegates in January 2003.
The changes in leadership come after county commissioners chose Jan. 18 not to reappoint their second representative, Mickey Luker, who had served on the TWSA board for five years, with three and a half as chairman. TWSA board members that same night reelected Luker as chairman, but later found out that county leaders had instead named Frank Wilkie, a former Nantahala Power & Light Co. manager, as their second delegate.
Wilkie had served as the county’s representative to the Economic Development Commission until the county suspended its EDC participation Jan. 12. Wilkie told commissioners after his TWSA appointment that he will be unable to fulfill the role until late summer, when his term as Sylva Lions Club president ends.
Because of that conflict, County Commissioner Brian McMahan is temporarily serving in Wilkie’s stead, causing commissioners to reschedule their regular Tuesday-night meetings to Mondays in order to allow McMahan to attend TWSA sessions, which are also held on Tuesdays.
McMahan was sworn in as a TWSA board member Feb. 15.
The other leadership shakeup at the authority – the replacement of former TWSA director Hugh Montgomery, who announced his resignation in October – is expected to be complete by early next week, when a committee plans to announce the results of its search for a new director.
Montgomery is currently working two days a week as interim director and being paid 62 percent of his former $66,000 salary. He is leaving his post to be closer to his family in Chapel Hill.
A number of other issues came before the TWSA board Feb. 15. They include:
Dillardtown Water System
The 100 people in the 55 households who make up the non-profit, private Dillardtown Water System want to be able to shower on Saturdays, and TWSA board members approved spending $500 to move them one step closer to that goal.
Dillardtown system members will contribute $500, and TWSA will match them dollar for dollar, for a map laying out how a new water system could be installed in the area.
One of the two largest private water systems in the county that use TWSA as their water source – the other is Cowan Valley – Dillardtown is a 45-year-old system of aging 1- and 2-inch black plastic pipe. Members of the Dillardtown group purchase water from TWSA at a meter located at the intersection of Dillardtown Road and Business 23. Water pressure there is 90 pounds per square inch, but trickles to 10 psi by the end of the line.
“It depends on if someone is washing clothes or taking a shower,” said Montgomery, who addressed the board on behalf of Dillardtown president Del Reid.
“You may as well forget your Saturday bath,” said Dillardtown treasurer Jane McMahan.
“During any given 24-hour period, some of our customers have little if any water coming into their homes. Breaks in this old pipe occur regularly and, having no paid staff, we must contract with a certified system operator to affect the repair,” Reid wrote in a letter to County Commissioners’ Chairman Stacy Buchanan.
In light of the fact that the system is failing and the area is also home to an additional 50 households who get water from inadequate shared wells and springs, Dillardtown leaders are “painfully aware” they must take action soon, Reid wrote.
The group is petitioning TWSA and county leaders for help in snagging grants and low-interest loans to help them pay for improvements to their system, changes that could run about $380,000. More than 50 people recently attended a meeting on the issue at East Sylva Baptist Church, Montgomery said.
The $500 Dillardtown will contribute to create the map is 10 percent of the group’s cash reserves.
Montgomery said Dillardtown’s situation won’t improve without help from county commissioners.
“(Dillardtown) can’t do it alone, and TWSA can’t do it alone,” Montgomery said.
TWSA board member Brad Moses asked if the residents would also be interested in sewer service.
“Yes, yes, yes,” said TWSA Finance Officer Glenna Buchanan, also a Dillardtown resident.
Currently, TWSA bills the Dillardtown system in bulk and members contribute $28 a month for water service.
Cashiers sewer allocation
Board members voted to allocate 2,160 gallons per day of sewer treatment capacity to Cashiers’ Chattooga Club.
The allotment is for six three-bedroom cottages club owners plan to build in the next one or two years.
The decision brings TWSA close to using up the additional 20,000 gallons-per-day capacity created by recent improvements to the Cashiers sewer plant. While TWSA has environmental permits to run a 200,000 gpd plant in Cashiers, the facility was until recently only able to treat 80,000 gpd, and brought up to 100,000 gpd through the first phase of TWSA’s capital improvements plan.
With the Chattooga Club allocation, about 18,000 of that 20,000 gpd is now spoken for – with 9,000 gpd for a shopping center to be built off U.S. 64 on Slabtown Road, 6,000 gpd for developer Fritz Rybert, and the remainder for a few homes and businesses.
Grant awards
The N.C. Rural Center recently awarded TWSA two grants totaling nearly half a million dollars.
Attained with the assistance of state Rep. Phil Haire and state Sen. John Snow, one provides $400,000 for a water line that will run from Main Street up Business 23 down Skyland Drive to Harold Street. The line will connect to another planned TWSA upgrade, that of a 500,000-gallon storage tank to be installed near Jackson Plaza shopping center.
The other grant provides $40,000 to build system capacity – a process that involves analyzing the current operations of the sewer plants on the Tuckaseigee River and Scotts Creek, plus scheduling some sort of facilitation between Southwestern Community College, Western Carolina University, and the governmental groups that formed TWSA, namely Sylva, Dillsboro, Webster and Jackson County.
Such multigroup cooperation would enable TWSA to be aware of upcoming developments requiring water or sewer capacity, Montgomery said.
“This will be a good platform for (the new director) to understand who the players are,” he said.
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