Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Over two decades ago, the Town of Wallace and Pender County signed a contract for Wallace to provide water to the neighboring county. At the time, Pender did not have enough water to meet the demands of its growing population. As Wallace Town Manager Rob Taylor said in an interview with Duplin Journal, “Wallace had tons of it, so it was a good contract for both of us.” The contract was good for 40 years.
Since that agreement, things have changed for Pender County. According to Taylor, Pender County has built their own water treatment plant and the county has been adding wells to its system. As a result, they are not as in need of water from Wallace.
“They’ve been hinting about getting out of that contract for a while,” Taylor said. “It was a take-or-pay contract, meaning if they did not use the water, they still had to pay us.”
The existing contract has been a lucrative one for Wallace. The town has been collecting about $8,000 a month from Pender County in water sales.
After a series of negotiations between Pender County and Wallace, the two parties recently reached a new agreement that will help Pender County relieve themselves of the current costs of the contract and allow Wallace a way to still maintain water revenue from the Pender County area.
In a special called meeting on Sept. 23, the Wallace Town Council voted to approve a new contract with Pender County.
The new contract allows the Town of Wallace to purchase three miles of water line currently owned by Pender County. That line leads to 150 acres of land that Wallace annexed in Pender County last year. Plans are in place for 600 quarter-acre home sites to be developed on the property with land remaining for possible commercial development as well. The property is located in the vicinity of the NC Hwy 11 split from US Hwy 117 near Willard.
Under the newly approved agreement, Wallace will purchase the three miles of water line to the property at a cost of $1 million, payable in installments of $100,000 per year for 10 years. The third party in the agreement is the developer of the 150-acre tract who will front the Town of Wallace $100,000 a year for five years in the form of pre-paid system development fees.
“Basically, it’s a wash for us the first five years,” Taylor said.
In the long term, the new contract works out in the town’s favor, Taylor added.
“Every house that gets built has to pay a system development fee to tap into the system,” Taylor said. “That development should generate, once it’s all built out, about $1.56 million in system development fees. That pays for the water line, plus gives us another $570,000 worth of revenue.”
The contract will still allow Wallace to sell water to Pender County in the event they need backup.
During the special called meeting, Taylor told the council the developer had been waiting for the contract to be approved so he could proceed with getting the land ready.
“This means the developer can do what he needs to since (the negotiations for the new contract) have been a holdup for him. He has someone interested in buying the site, but he can’t get that done until he shows the state where the water supply is coming from. He really wanted to be moving dirt this fall, but because this has taken so long, it’s probably going to end up being further into the winter.”
In the interview with Duplin Journal after the special called meeting, Taylor praised the actions of former Wallace mayor Charley Farrior and previous town council members for having the foresight that put Wallace in a position to be well-supplied with water and an efficient wastewater treatment facility.
