Manassas City and Prince William County are planning to shell out a total of $50.5 million to buy additional sewage capacity from Fairfax County at the massive Upper Occoquan Sewage Authority plant in Centreville.
The new deal makes sense for all involved: Growth has placed tough demands on Manassas and Prince William, while Fairfax is not using the bulk of its capacity at the plant.
The plant can process 54 million gallons of sewage for Fairfax County, Prince William County, Manassas City and Manassas Park City combined, but has not approached its total capacity largely because Fairfax has an allotment for more than 15 million gallons per day it hasn’t been using.
The plan keeps the smaller governments from paying costly overage fees for exceeding their capacity allotments.
Without the agreement, these governments could have been in the odd position of having to pay an estimated $160 million to expand the plant though it had not actually reached its operating capacity.
“We recover our costs and we won’t have to pay for any upgrades to the capacity we don’t think we’ll need,” said Shahram Mohsenin, Fairfax County’s director of waste water planning and monitoring.
Prince William County will buy 2 million gallons per day for $33.7 million and Manassas City will buy 1 million gallons per day for $16.85 million.
“It’s better to fully use what you’ve got, than begin building too early,” said Lyle Beefelt, director of budget and management for the Prince William County Sanitation Authority.
“This solves the immediate need for additional capacity, but there may be an expansion that is necessary down the road,” UOSA Executive Director Charles Boepple said.
