The South Fulton Municipal

Regional Water and Sewer Authority and its member cities: Union City,

Palmetto, and Fairburn is one step closer to building and operating a

reservoir.

During last week's Fairburn

City Council meeting, the City Council approved an operations and finance

agreement of the water and sewage authority.

Member cities recognize that

the authority, in order to fund the construction and operation of a water

reservoir or reservoirs, will issue revenue bonds in an amount sufficient

to achieve several objectives.

Part of the proceeds from the

revenue bonds may be used to purchase Palmetto's existing waste water

treatment plant, and its water reservoir provided that it is offered for

sale to the authority at a fair market value established by an independent

qualified person or firm and agreed to by Palmetto and the Authority.

The transmission lines for

the raw water, potable water, and waste water will not be purchased by

the authority.

The transmission lines for

the raw water, potable water, and waste water will remain the property

of Palmetto.

Estimated amount of revenue

bonds is uncertain at this time.

The member cities' covenant

obligate their tax bases to provide necessary funds should revenues from

the project or projects be insufficient to regularly meet the debt service

requirements of the originally issued revenue bond.

The extent of the obligation

of the member cities is to make up any shortfall created by a lack of

revenues to support the debt service requirements of the originally issued

revenue bonds.

The shortfall, if due to the

raw and/or potable water facilities, will be apportioned among the three

cities based upon the percentage of water used in each city as compared

to the total number of water used in all three cities combined.

This proposed formula for addressing

the shortfall shall be updated on at least a semi-annual basis beginning

six months after the date of the execution of this agreement.

The shortfall, if due to wastewater

treatment facilities, will be apportioned to the member cities based on

the percentage of capacity of the wastewater treatment facilities that

is agreed to and approved by the governing bodies of each of the member

cities.

According to the 2000 Georgia

General Assembly, the authority shall serve the member cities only with

the project or projects.

Once the project or projects

are completely operational, the member cities agree to purchase all of

their respective potable water requirements from the authority. The agreement

states that:

The water requirements of the

member cities represent the amount of potable water that customers located

within the corporate limits of the respective member cities require on

a daily basis.

Sales of potable water by a

member city may only occur to the persons or entities located within the

corporate limits of that particular member city.

A member city may not sell

potable water to persons or entities located within the corporate limits

of another member city.

Should any of the member cities

desire to purchase potable water from the authority to be sold to other

than a customer located within the corporate limits of the particular

member city, the other two member cities must consent to this type of

purchase.

According to Charles Corbin,

engineer of Meek and Wood Inc., Fairburn is currently hooked on the city

of Atlanta's water pipes mainly for emergency purposes. He stated that

Fairburn wouldn't have to pay any extra for being connected to the water

pipes because Fairburn will have their own reservoir soon.

"The reason behind such

urgency to start building these reservoirs is for future protection,"

said Corbin. He says it was predicted that by the year 2030 there may

be a water shortage.