Amador County – The Amador Water Agency board of directors on Thursday learned that it could not get a higher capacity in its sewer system improvement deal with the city of Sutter Creek, but approved a cost-shared expansion with the city. General Manager Jim Abercrombie sought to get more capacity in exchange for Sutter Creek’s conversion of AWA’s wastewater daily flow capacity from secondary to tertiary treatment level. Abercrombie said the agency’s current 480,000 gallons per day capacity would be exchanged from secondary to tertiary capacity in a deal between Sutter Creek and Gold Rush Ranch & Golf Resort. AWA sought instead to have that trade capacity upgraded to 600,000 gallons a day. Abercrombie said Sutter Creek City Manager Rob Duke did not want to renegotiate and lose previously committed agreements with Gold Rush. Board Member Bill Condrashoff of District 1 asked why AWA paid $750,000 to match Sutter Creek in the original capacity upgrade. Abercrombie said the upgrade was needed because of diminished capacities and increased flows of Fats, Oils and Greases in the system, which made the AWA system’s delivery of water to Sutter Creek violate state requirements. He said AWA could have spent the money to upgrade its own system, or as it chose, invested in the Sutter Creek upgrade and benefit from balanced capacity and also get access to 60,000 gallons a day more capacity. Board Chairman Terence Moore said he asked for the proposed increase in the trade because he was concerned about a clause in the new agreement that said “Gold Rush will only pay for 113,000 gallons a day in tertiary treatment, and suddenly we are going to be on the hook for upgrading that plant to 60,000 gallons a day.” Moore said the agency has “an out, so we’ll just upgrade our developer fees to hook into that additional 60,000 gallons a day capacity.” Condrashoff asked if Martell needed “capacity, with something like Prospect Motors closing.” Abercrombie said the Martell-area capacity base has been allocated and “maxed out.” Engineering Manager Gene Mancebo said that capacity was guaranteed to customers, who may not be using all of the total 100,000 gallons a day capacity. Mancebo said upgrades to the Sutter Creek system were well under way and “very close to completion.” The board voted to have Abercrombie sign the agreement with Sutter Creek. The Sutter Creek City Council has not yet approved the agreement. Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.