Fremont in debt for waste removal
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on April 22, 2015 1:46 PM
FREMONT -- Town Administrator Barbara Aycock told the Fremont Board of Aldermen Tuesday night that the town is more than $50,000 in debt to Goldsboro.
The debt has accumulated in recent months due to the town's need to transport sanitary sewer waste to Goldsboro for processing when heavy rains occur.
When rain is not an issue, the town uses sprayfields to dispose of the waste, avoiding the the need to pay Goldsboro. But in the past month alone Fremont has seen more than seven inches of rain, preventing the town from using its sprayfields.
"With all this rain, we'll have to release our wastewater stored in the pond by the sprayfields," Mrs. Aycock said. "All this rain is preventing us from using our sprayfields. When you look at the trend of the past six, seven, eight years, the problem is that the holes we have in our pond are getting bigger, and it's increasing the amount we're paying to Goldsboro."
Due to the rainy weather Wayne County has experienced in the past several months, the amount of wastewater being shipped to Goldsboro between January and February alone jumped 5 million gallons.
"The bottom line is that we have to reduce the amount of sewage we're sending to Goldsboro," Mrs. Aycock said.
Mayor Darron Flowers attempted to remain positive in light of these new facts.
"We may not be solving all of our problems, but we're nibbling at them," Flowers said. "And if you nibble at them long enough, you can eventually get a big bite out of them."
Including debt owed to Goldsboro, Fremont has more than $1.4 million in total debt spread across various loans for myriad items.
Two of the loans creating the debt are for the town's sewer costs and sprayfield costs. Each has a life span of 40 years.
Sewer debt totals $772,000, with $648,000 still owed on the loan, and sprayfield debt totals $158,000, with $157,749 still being owed on the loan.
Mrs. Aycock emphasized the key to paying down sprayfield and sewer debt is to find a way to send Goldsboro less of the town's sewage in order to reduce costs.
"It'll be tough for a few more years, but then it'll get better," Mrs. Aycock said.
In other business, Fremont Police Chief Paul Moats shared an update on crime in Fremont at the end of Tuesday night's meeting.
Moats said the town has only experienced one break-in this year, which was solved within 24 hours.
"It was at the library, and it was solved within 24 hours because we had video footage of the guy," Moats said. "He walked into the library, and looked straight at the camera. So I brought him in and showed him the footage and he said, 'That ain't me.' Then he said he needed to use the bathroom, and he wasn't under arrest at the time, so we let him. When he got near the bathroom, he took off out the back door and only made it a few blocks before we apprehended him. He gave us a confession and we charged two people with the crime, and both of them are still in jail."