Six years of rapid growth in the Georgia 400 corridor now threatens to come to a halt as Fulton County officials predict the Big Creek wastewater treatment plant will run out of room by 2001.
The possibility of a development moratorium in the western corridor exists, said Fulton County Commission Chairman Mike Kenn. "It's being evaluated on a a daily basis."
Kenn said permitting activity has stepped up significantly in the face of a possible development shutdown.
"On the Big Creek side, there's been a marked increase. Everybody's trying to get in under the looming moratorium," he said. "It has basically sped up the permitting process. What normally might have transpired over a two-year period may evolve in half that time."
But Gordon Buchmiller, a partner in Atlanta-based commercial developer Childress Klein Properties, attributed the increased activity to increased demand.
"There's just a big demand for commercial space," he said. "If we aren't able to address that demand, there's the potential there for a significant slowdown to the economy."
More development puts more pressure on the Big Creek Water Reclamation Facility.
Big Creek has a Georgia Environmental Protection Division permit to handle up to 24 million gallons per day of wastewater for any month-long period, said Fulton County Public Works Director Terry L. Todd.
Average monthly flows at the plant hit 23.44 million gallons per day in April 1998. The facility was averaging about 18.7 million gallons per day for the 13 months between April 1998 and April 1999. Todd said with current development rates, he expects to get, perhaps, about 18 more months out of the plant.
"What we're looking at is sometime near year-end 2000 is going to be a critical time frame," he said.
A pipe diverting sewage from the overworked Johns Creek Water Pollution Control Plant to the Big Creek will be completed by the end of 2000, he said.
The county plans to shunt off 2 million to 3 million gallons a day from the Johns Creek plant, which exceeded its capacity of 7 million gallons a day nine times between April 1998 and April 1999, Todd said.
The county was fined $1,500 each time there was an overrun. The highest monthly average was in April 1998 at 9.75 million gallons a day.
The overruns prompted a development moratorium in the 35-square-mile Johns Creek basin, which is in effect through next summer.
Basin developers worry
Overruns also have prompted concern for Johns Creek basin developers such as Duluth-based Technology Park/Atlanta Inc., which is developing the 1,800-acre Johns Creek business park.
Before the moratorium took effect in January, Technology Park leaders were able to obtain permits for several projects on the table, said Rick O'Brien, president of the company. The Johns Creek park also is uniquely situated with about a third of it outside the moratorium zone, in Forsyth County, so development can continue in that section.
Fulton's commissioners enacted the moratorium with plans to re-evaluate sewer capacity issues at the end of the 18-month period.
If the moratorium is extended, it could create a serious setback for the company, so Technology Park executives have been examining some options.
"We are exploring a small treatment plant within our complex," O'Brien said. "I believe it could be five years, at least, before Fulton County can get caught up and be able to comfortably issue permits."
Technology Park's treatment facility would help bridge that gap.
Fulton squeezes use of plants
Fulton officials also estimate it realistically would take five years to increase capacity at the Big Creek plant. In the meantime, they have taken steps to squeeze every bit of use possible out of existing facilities.
About two years ago, crews set out to make the system storm water-tight so water that need not be treated cannot flow into the treatment plant.
There are two main areas of storm water infiltration, explained Ed Clark, chairman of the board of environmental engineering consultant Jordan, Jones and Goulding Inc., the Atlanta company Fulton County hired to help with its wastewater issues.
One is to correct all the places where large volumes of storm water enter the system, such as when someone's gutters incorrectly flow into the sanitary sewer. Another is repairing smaller leaks such as those that form around a manhole cover.
Clark said workers found and corrected significant inflows into the system, but added that no one will know just how successful the effort has been until an extended stretch of wet weather hits metro Atlanta.
Attacking from a different angle, Nancy Leathers, director of Fulton's Environment and Community Development Department, was busy in late spring hammering out an agreement with the cities of Alpharetta and Roswell. Both cities use the Big Creek plant.
The agreement would limit development in the Big Creek service area to a fixed quantity during a specific period of time.
Chamber hires consultant
"What we're really looking at is stretching out the time period so that we don't use the capacity and then have no development at all in the basin," Leathers said.
The development industry is throwing its hat in the ring as well, said John Dorris, president of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce in Roswell.
The area in question is, by far, the fastest-growing section of Fulton County, he said.
A moratorium would shut down new construction, but it also would prevent existing companies in the basin from expanding their operations, he said.
To help, the chamber hired its own engineering consultant to work on the problem.
"It's not something we fear the county could not handle on its own, but in an effort to aid them in finding a solution to this problem, we hired [the consultant]," Dorris said.
즐겨찾기 추가 
시작페이지로 설정
