Fremont is closer to spray field
By Laura Collins
Published in News on August 11, 2010 1:46 PM
Fremont is moving closer to opening its spray field by year's end.
Construction began on the spray irrigation treatment and disposal facility on Davis Mill Road on June 14. The town will begin looking for its operator next week. Town Administrator Kerry McDuffie said the construction is going according to plan and officials are hoping the spray field will be operating by Dec. 10.
The North Carolina Rural Center gave the town a $500,000 grant for the project, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the town a $313,000 grant. Fremont is paying $158,000 for the spray field, which McDuffie said is worth it.
"The (spray field) is going to save us over $100,000 a year," he said. "We understand that a sewer project is not a very exciting project to most people, but a project that saves this much money the citizens should get excited about."
Previously, the town signed a contract with the city of Goldsboro which allowed it to send 600,000 gallons per day to the city. The town built a line to pump sewer from Fremont to Goldsboro and began pumping in January 2003.
McDuffie said there was still a problem with rain water getting into the sewer, and the town was having to pay for rain water to be treated. The town was collecting about $30,000 a month for sewer fees, but was paying out much more to Goldsboro. Fremont is charged $5.49 per 1,000 gallons of sewer.
Recent repairs to the sewer lines in the town helped with some of the rain water that is getting into the sewers, but McDuffie said the town is not where it needs to be. He said the town sells about 100,000 gallons of water per day, so it should only have about 100,000 gallons of sewage per day. In July, the town sent about 123,000 gallons of sewage a day to Goldsboro.
The town's spray field is permitted for 91,000 gallons per day. The field is about 77 acres, but only about 43.5 acres can be used after the appropriate distance from surrounding property is deducted. The two lagoon ponds hold a total of 27 million gallons.
McDuffie estimates the spray field will save the town $181,000 per year in sewer fees. The cost of hiring an employee and operating the facility will be about $68,000 per year, leaving more than $100,000 in savings for the town each year.