Pinehurst officials announced this week that they plan to purchase the water and wastewater treatment plants of the former West Point Pepperell mill facilities and an adjacent 198 acres in Wagram for $5.5 million.
Pinehurst and WP Properties Wagram, LLC have reached an agreement-in-principal and are currently working out the details of the sale, which should occur in early November 2009.
The plants, both with a 7 million gallon per day capacity, are located at 19320 Airbase Road near Wagram. WP Properties is located in Georgia.
Scotland County had initially planned to help form a regional group to rehab the treatment plants with other municipalities, including Laurinburg. The county would have used it as a source of additional revenue.
"Right now, it looks like they are stepping ahead with plans they were already looking at doing," Scotland County Manager Kevin Patterson said. "At this point in time, they are looking at buying the facility. They do think its a great asset and they believe it needs to be in public hands, which I agree with."
Patterson said municipalities in Moore County have connected systems, but do not have enough water in-house to accommodate a growing population.
"They'll do exactly what we were doing and see who wants to come to the table to form a regional community," Patterson said. "This just puts them in a driver seat instead of us."
While the county may not be able to use the treatment plant as an eventual cash cow, Patterson said Pinehurst taking the lead is not a bad thing.
"County would not be taking lead on that debt," Patterson said.
In a presentation earlier this year, Jim Perry of the Lumber River Council of Governments said the upgrades neccessary to use the plants for municipal water would cost $33 million before running new transmission lines. Pinehurst is situated about 30 miles from the plant.
The county manager added that Scotland was still in the early steps of looking at the project and had not lost anything.
He added that while Moore County needs outside water to meet current demand, Scotland County has plenty of water.
"We have excess capacity now. Even with our population growth now, we expect excess capacity for at least 20 years," Patterson said.
He added that since the plant uses the Lumber River and not the aquifer in Scotland County, it should not affect local water supply. Water in Scotland County comes from wells.
Laurinburg City Manager Ed Burchins says Pinehurst's plans will not have much of an impact on the city.
"It doesn't have any affect on the city," Burchins said. "We have more than adequate water and wastewater capacity so it has absolutely no impact on us whatsoever."
The city manager said he see no loss ofpotential revenue.
"There was some talk on it, but there was no serious study on it. I don't see that there is any revenue loss to us because we never had a chance to do any work... on whether it was feasible or not... Since there was no opportunity that we know of to make money off of us, I don't think we lost any money on it," Burchins said.
Burchins added that Pinehurst "is going to have to spend a tremendous amount of money" to build the infrastructure required to use the plants.
Burchins says the city needs to serve residents first.
"Our focus really needs to be on looking after the needs of Laurinburg," Burchins said.
Pinehurst Mayor George Lane says the village is making the purchase, "to ensure a sustainable and adequate supply of water for Pinehurst and the greater Sandhills region." He also indicated the village council is looking forward to working with the leadership of Scotland County to facilitate the use of the underutilized plant to address the water needs of Scotland, Moore and other surrounding counties. As a part of the sale, Pinehurst has agreed to continue to serve the current customers of the West Point plants.
Councilman Jeff Dawson says the treatment plant buys is important to the water-strapped town.
"Acquiring the West Point plants is just the first step in ensuring an adequate water supply for our region," Dawson said. "Pinehurst looks forward to working cooperatively with Moore County (its municipalities) and surrounding counties to facilitate partnerships and provide residents of the Sandhills with a long-term stable source of water."
The councilman also wants to see the capacity expanded to 15 million gallons per day or more.
During the drought of 2002, Pinehurst and other towns in Moore County came close to running out of water. Moore County and Pinehurst declared a water emergency and implemented Stage IV Emergency Mandatory Water Conservation measures. Moore County required Pinehurst residents to reduce water usage by at least 50% and refrain entirely from using water outdoors. The County’s suggested ways to accomplish the reduction in usage were to limit showers to less than 5 minutes, limit the flushing of the toilet, use disposable plates and utensils, and limit clothes washing.
Businesses were not allowed to serve water, except upon request, and were asked to refrain from nonessential use of water. For the Pinehurst Resorts’ Carolina hotel, that meant serving guests of the Four-Diamond resort with disposable paper products.
In 2007, Moore County implemented Stage II and Stage III Mandatory Water Conservation measures when there was a limited amount of water available. Again in 2008, Moore County instituted Stage II Mandatory Water Conservation measures.
The village of Pinehurst has a population of 11,632 and is the second largest municipality in Moore County. Moore County Public Utilities currently owns and operates the water system that serves Pinehurst residents. Southern Pines, Aberdeen, and Carthage each own and operate their respective municipal water systems.
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