The idea of uniting all the water and sewer systems in Polk County under one authority moved forward this week.

Elected officials and managers from Polk County, Tryon, Columbus and Saluda gathered for a joint meeting at the Columbus Town Hall Tuesday to hear a presentation from Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority (TWSA) officials.

TWSA merged the three water and sewer systems in Jackson County in 1992.

For the first 90 minutes of TWSAs presentation, Polk officials heard tales of woe. But they also heard that TWSA has been successful in winning $10 million in grants over the past five years, and is fixing its problems one by one.

Furthermore, TWSA officials said that Polk County could, by taking heed and care, head off the problems faced by TWSA, an acronym which Jackson officials pronounced twasa.

By the end of the night, the majority sentiment in the room was to explore further a water and sewer authority for Polk County, and Jackson County officials encouraged that sentiment.

Even with all the problems, forming TWSA was one of the best things Jackson County ever did. We have a far better system now. Brian McMahan told Polk County officials. McMahan is chairman of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners and has served on the TWSA board for five years.

McMahan said those Jackson County officials in charge at the time of the merger were facing a crisis. The Sylva, Dillsboro and Webster water and sewer systems were not meeting the requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act, and time had run out.

You dont have to rush in, McMahan advised Polk officials. We were in a state of crisis. We were having to send water tankers to the hospital. We had to react and get this in place. The folks in charge ran real quick to get it done and left a lot of loose ends. They were in uncharted waters.

Polk officials, after a brief discussion, decided to move forward. Officials from each entity were asked to gather complete descriptions of their current water and sewer systems, the good and the bad.

The three towns Tryon, Columbus and Saluda and the county will prepare detailed reports on their utility systems: debts, assets, operating personnel, current rates, gallons per day water, gallons per day sewer, and anything else.

The officials decided to gather again to review those reports and continue discussions on Sept. 28th, at 7 p.m., in Columbus.

Were not in a crisis mode, said Polk County Board of Commissioners Chairman Cindy Walker, But we dont want to wait either.

Before the managers go to work, Polk County Manager Ryan Whitson said he wanted to ask if there was a desire from the towns and county officials to move forward with a water authority.

I want us to see the numbers first to determine the feasibility, said county commissioner Renee McDermott.

Tryon Mayor Alan Peoples and Tryon councilman Austin Chapman, however, said Tryon has more of a necessity than a desire.

None of us can afford to run four different systems, Peoples said.

Chapman said Tryons water plant has five times the production capacity as we have demand. And we cant go out and cultivate demand because of the cost of infrastructure.

Peoples suggested that Tryons water plant alone could supply a new county authority with treated water until a second plant was built sometime in the future to access water from the county-owned Lake Adger.

For most of the evening, Joe Cline, executive director of TWSA, described the kinds of problems that the merged Jackson County authority has faced.

TWSA serves 3,000 customers with three separate systems in Jackson County, population 33,000. The authority serves Western Carolina University and Cullowhee, where one customer might be an off-campus apartment building with 100 residents.

One problem for TWSA, Cline said, was that the local governments, once they handed over the keys to the water and sewer plants in 1992, walked away believing they were out of the utility business.

TWSA had no operating capital in its first month, and no money for capital improvements.

There is no money to be made in water and sewer, Cline said. There are far more needs than you will ever have funding for.

However, he said the towns and county should provide ongoing financial support of the system because of the economic and environmental benefits.

TWSA is the driving economic force of the county as a whole, Cline said.

For a couple years, at the height of the development boom in Western North Carolina, TWSA was under a state-imposed moratorium and could not accept any new sewer customers after an over-used sewer plant released spills into the Tuckaseegee River.

That really hurt Jackson County, Cline said.

Jackson County chairman McMahan said Jackson County maintains a fund to help TWSA with upgrades and expansions and repairs, and the towns are still considering doing the same.

Sometimes, I have a person living 30 miles from the system, someone who will never hook up, ask why their tax dollars are going to support TWSA, McMahan said.

I tell them, You do benefit from clean water, tourism and jobs. The last thing we want in Jackson County is a sign posted on the Tuckaseegee saying this water is dirty and you cant fish, or kayak or boat here. That hurts the environment and the economy.

Another problem for TWSA was that much of the infrastructure it inherited was in poor shape, and poorly documented, Cline said.

To this day, TWSA does not have documented rights-of-way giving it authority to its fix lines running across some private properties.

TWSA and Jackson County officials are considering asking the state legislature to pass a bill deeming a right-of-way for long established utility lines.

Yet another problem is that TWSA is not exactly sure what it owns, Cline said.

We are still in what we call pleasant discussion with the municipalities as to exactly what was transferred in the merger. It was a handshake agreement. We didnt have any maps, or drawings. Everyone said. Dont worry. Well handle it later.

In the case of Sylvas system, Cline said TWSA accepted liabilities, not assets.

Cline, a former town manager himself from Tennessee, said he knows how towns operated their systems in the old days. He joked about the water plant operator being called out to go retrieve dead cats from yards, and lines being installed every which way, without being mapped or documented, by private contractors working for the mayors friends.

Ironically, Cline said it was the poor shape of the system TWSA inherited than enabled it to be so successful in winning $10 million in grants over the past five years.

We could show the need, he explained.

Setting up a new billing system was another nightmare, said assistant TWSA director Glenna Buchanan.

She also said employees who came over from the Sylva water system were hurt when they left Sylvas private retirement system to join TWSA. They lost credit for the years they worked for Sylva when they entered the state retirement system.

McMahan said all of those problems faced by TWSA potentially could be fixed before creating a new authority in Polk County.

Make sure your agreement from day one is rock solid, definite enough, very clear and understandable, so that the folks who replace you on these boards ten years from now can understand what is in place and how it works, McMahan said.