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Oconee County News
Oconee County - Best Place to Live
Story and Photos By Jamie Cole
Oconee County is one of only two places that made our top 10 two years in a row. Considering how extensively we changed our formula from last year, that's especially impressive.
It's not surprising, though. Drive down Colham Ferry Road through the middle of the county, watching on both sides of the road as family farms, beatific country homes and horse barns pass. Walk the sidewalks in the county seat of Watkinsville, where historic buildings stand next to a beautiful new City Center complex that centralizes businesses and preserves the small-town flavor. Hike along the Apalachee River and the county's nature trails. All this and it's just across the Oconee River from Athens and the University of Georgia.
When Oconee County appeared on our list last year, one resident told us that "every realtor within 100 miles of here will use that to sell land." Folks in the county have a strong commitment, though, to maintaining their rural lifestyle.
Oconee plans to build its own water reservoir
Banner-Herald on 021906
WATKINSVILLE - By 2050, Oconee County businesses and homes will consume 21 million gallons of water a day, nearly seven times the amount they use today.
County leaders have watched as new waterlines snake through new subdivisions and have talked for three years about how they will meet the county's growing need for potable water.
After years of deliberation, Oconee County commissioners have decided: The community's future drinking water lies within its own borders, not in a planned regional reservoir it would share with neighboring Walton County and Winder.
Commissioners approved plans last week to build a new 1 billion-gallon reservoir on Barnett Shoals Road and backed out of previous plans to join in building a 3 billion-gallon reservoir in Walton County.
The proposed Barnett Shoals reservoir, which will store water pumped from the Oconee River, was a better option for Oconee County because it could provide as much water as the Hard Labor Creek Reservoir -about 12 million gallons a day - but at about half the cost, said Gary Dodd, Oconee County utilities director.
Oconee County's share of Hard Labor Creek's $382 million cost would have been about $110 million, paid over 50 years, whereas the Barnett Shoals reservoir is projected to cost the county about $55 million over the next 50 years.
Also, the Barnett Shoals Road reservoir would be closer to the county's existing water infrastructure, so the costs associated with transporting water to customers would be much lower, said Chris Thomas, assistant director of the Oconee County Utility Department.
Financing the Barnett Shoals reservoir might be cheaper, as well, since it will be bought with low-interest loans from the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority, Dodd said.
County leaders had considered two other sources of water: Pumping it from Lake Oconee or expanding a small, private reservoir near North High Shoals.
Pumping drinking water nine miles from Lake Oconee and then distributing it to customers proved too logistically difficult to consider, and officials were concerned that the state Environmental Protection Division would not approve the permits required to expand the reservoir at North High Shoals.
The county commission already voted to buy more than 250 acres between McRees Mill and McRees Gin roads on Barnett Shoals Road, Dodd said - land that is held in trust by the Griffith family. Dodd would not say how much the county will pay.
Geological surveys have confirmed the land is suitable for a reservoir, he said.
"We would have hated to have pulled away from the Hard Labor Creek project and have had the geological survey come back and say that we had a bog or something out there," Dodd said. "So we didn't want to completely back out of Hard Labor Creek until we knew we had a good site."
While Oconee County commissioners withdrew from the Hard Labor Creek project, officials in Walton County and Winder plan to continue with the reservoir and are courting Loganville and Social Circle as new partners, said Tim Shelnutt, chairman of the Walton County Water and Sewer Authority.
Oconee County officials hope to have the necessary environmental permits for the Barnett Shoals reservoir in hand by the end of 2008, Dodd said.
One of the benefits of the Hard Labor Creek project is that it already has state permits, but Dodd does not think the county will have a problem getting the necessary permits for the Barnett Shoals reservoir.
"People have said fairly often that it's easier to get permits for projects like this if several counties apply as a partnership," Dodd said. "But when we talked to the guys from EPD, they said it didn't matter. They said we should apply because it looked like a good project."
The entire reservoir should be complete and full of water by 2012, Dodd said.
Creating the reservoir will include construction of a 4,000-foot dam to complete the natural bowl created by the site's topography, Thomas said. Water would then be pumped about a quarter-mile into the reservoir from the Oconee River, but county officials are not sure how much they will be able to take from the river each day, said Thomas, the assistant director of utilities.
"The amount that we will be able to take from the river will vary with the river level," he said. "That's one good thing about having so much storage is that you can take more out of the river when it's high and keep it. There are some days when the water is so low you can't take anything out of the river."
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