Sewer commissioners toward the straight and narrow

Before South Carolina doles out money to help Oconee County meet sewer needs, the state wants to know if the plan will encompass an all-together or regional approach.  And yesterday the county sewer commissioners addressed whether there’ll be a requirement on the part of the member cities to take part in what’s called “a regionalization study for wastewater conveyance and treatment operations within the OJRSA’s service area of Oconee County.”  Chris Eleazer, Oconee’s sewer boss man, has been wondering of late whether Pioneer Rural Water District will someday expand to the sewer business in parts of rural Oconee and rural Anderson counties.  Yesterday Oconee’s sewer commissioners were made aware of a recent meeting to discuss American Rescue Plan money—a meeting in which participants included State Senator Thomas Alexander and Bonnie Ammons, executive director of the South Carolina Rural Infrastructure Authority.  The RIA can offer up to $100 thousand dollars, match-free, for such a study, but the study would have to meet its procurement requirements.