The septage

problem will land in the lap of the Fayette County Commission today.

After discussing

it a few times, the county Water Committee last week voted to pass along

a report from the staff Environmental Committee, alerting commissioners

that in the near future there may be no place to take septage the sewage

that is pumped out of septic tanks.

The County

Commission will hear a report on the problem during its regular monthly

work session, today at 3:30 p.m. at the County Administrative Complex.

Commissioners

will "tell us what they want to do with it," said Chris Venice,

county planning director. "They can ignore it, act on it or table

it."

Clayton County's

W.B. Casey sewer plant currently takes in Fayette County's septage, which

is hauled there by private companies.

But officials

in Clayton County's Water and Sewer Authority have put Fayette on notice

that its capacity to handle the septic tank effluent is limited, and Clayton

County customers come first. Eventually Clayton will no longer treat septage

from outside the county, officials warn.

Water Committee

clerk Lisa Gillis recently contacted other surrounding counties, and none

of them take out-of-county septage at their treatment facilities, according

to Venice.

County consultant

Jim Mallett has put together a cost study of one likely solution, building

a plant in Fayette County to treat the county's septage, and the Water

Committee has included that information in its report to the commission.

Mallett said

that solution would cost about a million dollars. Water Committee members

also discussed paying another county, or possibly Peachtree City or Fayetteville,

to increase their capacity to handle septage.

The county

could take the approach of leaving the matter to the private septage companies

to figure out, said County Attorney Bill McNally, but he added, "There

may be no place for the folks hauling it out of here to put it."

In its issue

paper, the committee points out that illegal dumping of septage has happened

in the past and could happen again if there's no legal dumping place available.

The Environmental

Committee's recommendation is that the county provide a pretreatment facility

and pursue a joint venture with some other public sewer system for disposal

of the pretreated effluent.

Building the

pretreatment facility could be paid for by charging a fee of $1 a month

to homeowners.

The county

also expects that new federal regulations will require building a treatment

facility for storm water, and homeowners also may be charged a "utility"

fee to pay for that, the committee's position paper says.