City of Pickens to vote on agreement with Greenville Water

PICKENS, S.C. (WSPA) — Pickens City Council was scheduled to vote on an agreement with Greenville Water Tuesday.

However, the meeting was cancelled because a council member was unable to attend the meeting, according to a city spokesperson. This “raised concerns that there would be a lack of a quorum required for council action.”

The proposed agreement would require the city to pay Greenville Water an initial payment of $3,848,000 for access to drinking water. The city would make additional payments each month for the next 40 years with a “3% carrying charge.”

Pickens would be allocated 1.3 million gallons of water per day from Greenville Water. The city could “resell water and may sell or lease its allocated capacity,” according to the agreement.

The agreement would be in place for 40 years with the option to extend it for two additional 30-year periods.

Some customers do not support the agreement.

“There’s no cap on how much Greenville Water can charge us,” Jessica Merrill, who lives in Pickens, said. “They can increase our rate yearly. We also have seen that there’s a 3.3% yearly finance charge. Trying to do quick math on that, it seems like we’re going to be paying more for going with Greenville Water than Joint Regional.”

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