Toyota, GMWSS extend agreement

It's an arrangement that has lasted for 20 years and now it's signed, sealed and delivered to last for 20 more.

The Georgetown Municipal Water and Sewer Service approved the user agreement with Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky at its December meeting for the use of the GMWSS Wastewater Treatment Plant No. 2, renewing the original agreement which was signed in 1987, the year Toyota began manufacturing vehicles at its Cherry Blossom Way facility.

"When Toyota came to town in 1987, they built the sewer plant in conjunction with GMWSS," said Billy Jenkins, general manager of GMWSS. "They actually built the plant and it was designed for them."

The user agreement with GMWSS had to be put in place so bonding requirements could be met, Jenkins said.

"They had to sign the user's agreement to meet the bonding specifications," he said. "Since then they have paid for 100 percent of the cost of operating the plant, which includes salaries, upgrades, maintenance, repairs and replacement."

GMWSS operates the plant, and Toyota foots all the bills, Jenkins said. The plant was dedicated only to Toyota's use until recently.

"The agreement said they (Toyota) would release some capacity for an outside source at some point," he said. "In the last five or six years we have taken some of that capacity for outside sour_ces."

The plant has the capacity to handle 2.2 million gallons of wastewater a day, Jenkins said. Toyota's use has been steady at 1.5 million gallons a day, leaving some 700,000 gallons of capacity free.

"They've backed off and freed up some of that capacity," he said.

GMWSS has been using around 200,000 gallons of that capacity a day to serve one of the fastest-growing areas of Georgetown, Jenkins said.

"It serves the Lemons Mill Road area, what we call the college pump station, Cherry Blossom Golf Course and Pleasant Valley," he said. "But the most important part of this is that it also serves the (Lane's Run) business park."

That area also contains the sites for two planned large shopping centers, Jenkins pointed out.

"They will go into this plant," he said.

The arrangement has been beneficial for both parties, he said.

"It's really helped GMWSS and it's really helped the city of Georgetown," Jenkins said. "All the bills are paid at no cost to GMWSS or the customers."

Since the outside sources have been added to the plant, the utility deducts that revenue from what Toyota pays, he said.

"They pay the costs minus what comes in from the outside," Jenkins said. "But that's not very much. It's just a small percentage."

The agreement is reviewed annually by GMWSS, and Toyota and representatives from the two entities meet each month for lunch at the plant to review the latest usage figures.

Looking to the future, there is ample capacity for Toyota to grow if it wishes to, Jenkins said.

"We have room to grow and they have a lot of land and a lot of facilities," he said.

The state, he said, re_quires a utility to start looking at the capacity of a wastewater treatment plant when it reaches 75 percent.

"At 85 percent," Jen_kins said, "they want you to come up with a plan, but we're nowhere near that now. It just depends on how much growth we get in that area. I would say in the next 10 to 15 years we might look at expansion."

The plant cost $20 million to build 20 years ago, an expensive figure back then, Jenkins said, but state requirements dictated that cost.

It's not the largest wastewater treatment plant GMWSS has, he said.

"Plant No. 1 has a capacity of 4.5 million (gallons per day) but uses about 2.5 and the Stamping Ground plant has a capacity of 140,000 and uses about 50,000," Jenkins said.

The bottom line is that GMWSS has plenty of wastewater treatment capacity right now in its system to handle additional growth, he said. It's the water supply that's the problem.

"We can handle plenty of sewage," Jenkins said. "But the water supply depends on the spring (Royal Spring)."

One good thing about the two proposed shopping centers, he said, is that they won't use much water or generate much sewage.

"A big shopping center with a big box store might have eight or 10 bathrooms," Jenkins said. "They're not a big water user. It's the restaurants that will surprise you. Some of them use about 30,000 gallons a day of water and sewer."

GMWSS is looking forward to another 20 years of working with Toyota, Jenkins said.

"I just hope it goes a lot faster," he said. "But it's been a great deal for the city."