Okaloosa County BOCC — October 16, 2012 — reading text

Since then, the system infrastructure and demand has grown as other developments have connected, such as Swift Creek Plantation and the Wal Mart Commercial Area. These developments are located in the City of Niceville water and sewer service area, and not all were authorized by Okaloosa County to provide reclaimed Packet Pg. 143  8.3.3 water service. As a result of the system growth and demand, the system experiences capacity problems on summer days. In May 2012, an interlocal agreement was executed by the parties of the NVOC Regional Sewer Board (the facility that produces reclaim water). By this agreement, Okaloosa County is no longer an owner in the NVOC Regional Sewer Board, and all OCWS flows will be diverted from the NVOC plant to the Arbennie Pritchett Water Reclamation Facility. When the diversion project is completed, an average of close to 800,000 gallons per day (GPD) of wastewater will no longer be available to produce reclaimed water. As the system already has capacity issues listed above, removing approximately 800,000 GPD has grave implications for the future sustainability of the system. Furthermore, after this interlocal agreement was executed, with strong recommendations from Eglin Environmental, the decision was made to keep the NVOC sprayfield instead of constructing RIBs. This means that at least 1 MGD will go to the sprayfield to keep the grass alive. Under the RIBs scenario, most of the flow would have been available to send to the reclaimed water system. This will further exacerbate the shortfall between capacity and demand. Now that OCWS is no longer an owner in the NVOC Regional Sewer Board, we do not have the need for the reclaim water system, that we had in 1994 when it was established. The attached agreement with the City of Niceville transfers our 50% ownership of the reclaimed water system to the City. If the County does not transfer its ownership share of the reclaimed system, the diversion of OCWS flow will result in a situation where the County owns half of the system assets but will not be contributing any flow to the reclaimed system. All of the flow going into the reclaimed system will be coming from the Cities of Niceville and Valparaiso. The County has received an excellent return on investment of the expenditures, both capital and O&M, required to construct, expand, and maintain the system. Now that Okaloosa County is only a customer of the NVOC Regional Sewer board, the reclaimed water system has no value as an effluent disposal system and only represents a financial liability to the County. Since the reclaim water system does not and cannot produce sufficient revenue to pay for the expenses and given the capacity issues, the monetary value of the system is zero. Furthermore, the local and state market ("going rate") for reclaimed water doesn't allow for revenue to exceed the expenses. There are other challenges to the current arrangement. With both the City and the County splitting ownership 50%, it is very difficult to resolve philosophical differences, such as metering and billing. The proposed Sale Agreement is also best for the public/customers, all of which are City water and sewer customers, not County. To summarize the benefit to the County of this proposed agreement, by the County conveying our 50% ownership of the system to the City, it will save OCWS an estimated $650,000 total over the next 10 years (approximately $65,000/year). Annual expenses that will no longer be needed include the following: repair & maintenance, groundwater sampling, power costs (for high horsepower pumps), line locates, CIP projects, and payments to RBCC. The reclaimed Packet Pg. 144  8.3.3 water agreement with RBCC expires in May 2014. Future agreements with the golf course may be problematic, due to the unusual financial stipulations in the existing agreement and the shortfall between capacity and demand when the OCWS flow is diverted. The proposed agreement was unanimously approved by the Niceville City Council on November 13, 2012. OPTIONS: Approve or deny. RECOMMENDATIONS: OCWS recommends the BCC authorize the Chairman to execute the attached Amendment to the Interlocal Agreement and Sale Agreement (along with associated attachments) with the City of Niceville for the transfer of reclaimed water facilities. RECOMMENDED BY: APPROVED BY: James D. Curry, County Administrator Packet Pg. 145  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 146 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 147 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 148 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 149 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 150 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 151 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 152 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 153 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 154 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 155 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 156 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 157 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 158 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 159 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 160 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 161 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 162 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 163 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 164 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 165 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 166 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 167 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 168 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 169 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 170 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water  8.3.3.a Packet Pg. 171 Attachment: Amendment to Interlocal Agreement (with all attachments) (1166 : Niceville Reclaimed Water