Sewer Authority takes to the road

How Oconee’s Joint Regional Sewer Authority can make things right with the state Department of Health and Environmental Control was a focus in the first of two meetings last night at Walhalla.  The JRSA has been under a DHEC consent order since May 2021, and the authority has been strategizing improvement projects to satisfy the state agency.  This was one of the subjects in the first of two meetings that JRSA held yesterday in Walhalla.  Part of the parallel discussion that the commissioners had with outside consultant Angie Metler of the WK Dickson Company was whether a new rate increase will be necessary to generate the monies needed to pull off some of the projects.  Raising the charges to the JRSA municipal members is a delicate issue, considering a 20% increase last year was considered by some city officials too much all at once.  However, Metler cautioned the commissioners that lenders count on the financial standing of an agency while it considers loan applications.  The JRSA chose Walhalla’s Community Depot for two meetings:  the regular January board meeting, followed by the annual members’ meeting that allows city leaders to hear directly about the operations of the system.