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County to try one more time at SDA agreement
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Effingham County commissioners are willing to make one more, and perhaps one last, try to come to terms with Rincon on a service delivery area amenable to both entities.

Interim County Administrator David Crawley and County Engineer Steve Liotta told commissioners at their meeting Tuesday afternoon about a meeting held the week before with representatives from the county’s three municipalities. Commissioners Reggie Loper and Myra Lewis attended the meeting.

“There was some pretty good progress made on the service delivery areas for Springfield and Guyton,” Liotta said.

“There were some qualms from the commissioners on the size of the Guyton area and some qualms on the Rincon service delivery area going all the way to the (Savannah) river.”

Guyton Mayor Michael Garvin said that whatever his city could not service within its service delivery area, the county was welcome to do so.

“If Guyton can’t get there, it’s yours,” he said last week.

The county has a contract with the developers of the Grandview project to provide water and sewer service. Rincon officials have said they want to serve the Heritage tract northwest of the city limits. Grandview is close to the city’s wastewater treatment facility and Heritage is not far from the county’s wastewater treatment plant.

Liotta proposed that it could be more efficient for the county to contract with Rincon to serve Grandview and for Rincon to enter into an agreement with the county to service Heritage. The county made that offer last year.

“That was sort of left on the table,” he said.

He also said that he has received notice from Savannah Industrial and Domestic Water, which provides surface water to the county, that its wholesale rates on water will be rising from $1.44 per 1,000 gallons to $1.52 per 1,000 gallons.

“I don’t perceive it to be an annual thing,” Liotta said of the increase, “but I wouldn’t be surprised.”