News

County faces wide funding gap in addressing Etowah sewer service

Options to serve the small base of Etowah sewer customers include a new treatment plant or sending the effluent to existing plants operated by the Buncombe-based Metropolitan Sewer District or the city of Hendersonville. [HENDERSON COUNTY ENGINEER]

By Bill Moss, Published: July 8, 2026

Henderson County’s decision to buy the Etowah Sewer Co. is looking less and less like a sound financial deal.

But to be fair, the decision from commissioners’ point of view was more about growth management than it was owning a failing sewer company.

When commissioners voted unanimously in July 2024 to buy the private sewer company, they were facing a huge NIMBY uprising over a large proposed development at Etowah Valley Golf Club. Owning the plant meant commissioners could control sewer hookups — and effectively block the development.

Now, though, the bill is coming due, and commissioners are struggling with how to pay it.

“The plant is in terrible condition and at high risk of imminent failure,” Board of Commissioners Chair Bill Lapsley said during a long discussion of the topic last month.

County engineers and consultant have presented five options for replacement of the wastewater treatment plant or sending the effluent to established neighboring sewer plants. Projected costs range from $28.7 million to $60.3 million. The county has roughly $13 million set aside for the job, thanks to two state grants. As Lapsley points out, that leaves a large gap.

The sewer system only has 450 paying customers. If those ratepayers have to cover debt service to fund a new plant, they’d each be paying $1,244 a year, or $100 a month, “on top of the $70 a month that we’re currently charging people,” said Lapsley, a retired civil engineer with decades of experience in public works issues.

“I hope I’m wrong,” he said. “I hope we get additional grants but I think it’s our job to plan for the worst and hope for the best, and if this board chooses option 6, that leaves a gap of $18 million.”

After debating the options on June 17, commissioners booted the topic to their July 15 meeting, in part to see whether a new state grant would be announced. It wasn’t. Just this week, commissioners got word that the newly adopted state budget contains no grant money for the Etowah plant.

“They’re gonna have a tough decision to make,” County Manager John Mitchell said of the elected leaders. “By the time it gets to the Board of County Commissioners, all the easy decisions have already been made. It’s in a state that it needs to be repaired or replaced. Well, it can’t be repaired. It’s gotta be replaced.”

The Etowah Sewer Advisory Board, which county commissioners formed to give ratepayers a voice in the system’s governance, supports the regionalization option, which would shut down the Etowah plant and send the effluent to Hendersonville’s treatment plant. The Hendersonville City Council voted unanimously to explore the option after county commissioners formally requested a response. In presenting the topic to the council, City Manager John Connet said the benefit would be to take “this plant that is near catastrophic failure offline.”

While Lapsley opposed the city partnership option, other commissioners support it.

“To me it boils down to, does the county want to be in the sewer business, because if we go with option 2 or 3 (replacing the plant), that puts us in the sewer business, and I think that’s the decision that we have to make as a board,” Commissioner Rebecca McCall said.

Engineers have told commissioners that state regulators would likely favor one of the regionalization options because that would eliminate the Etowah plant’s discharge permit. Commissioner Jay Egolf, who is chair of the Etowah sewer advisory board, said that factor suggests the county should first advance the Hendersonville option.

“Let’s try to see what kind of grants we can get,” he said. “If we get more (grant money) because it scores better, that makes the project even and then it comes down to operating and maintenance, and it’s in Etowah’s best interest that it’s 5 or 6” because of lower operating costs.

Annette Zita Huetter, an Etowah Valley homeowner and member of the sewer advisory board, also strongly supports the solution that uses Hendersonville’s more advanced treatment plant.

“The funding programs are believed to favor regionalization — eliminating a discharge permit is what the State wants — so Option 6 should compete better for the grant and forgiveness dollars that shrink the gap,” she said in an email to the Lightning. “Option 2’s price only looks lower because the comparison stops at 20 years. The plant is a 30-year asset — we’d be right back here around 2056, gap and all. Option 6 runs this financing problem once; Option 2 runs it every generation. … A failing plant carries emergency-repair, enforcement, and flood exposure that has no ceiling. Option 6’s risk is a bounded borrowing number; Option 2’s risks recur and aren’t capped.”