As the planning session moved into the public facilities and infrastructure chapter, Metcom and county staff briefed the Planning Commission on present wastewater and water capacity and on planned upgrades.

Christy Hollander and a Metcom representative explained treatment-plant capacity and timing for upgrades. On available sewer connections at the Marley Taylor treatment plant — which serves Piney Point and adjacent areas — a Metcom representative said the plant currently has "somewhere around 1,500 remaining" EDU allocations and noted staff are performing capacity analyses and planning an upgrade (preliminary engineering expected in 2027 with engineering funds in FY2031). Commissioners were told St. Clement Shores recently received a construction contract to add roughly 240 EDUs.

Commissioners pressed for clearer mapping of problem sewer areas. Planning staff said the County Water and Sewer Plan (CWSP) lists several problem sewer areas and that those areas together affect about "5,000 properties," a figure staff reiterated as significant and in need of follow-up. The Planning Commission asked health department staff to clarify where private-well water-quality issues (including reported higher arsenic levels in shallow aquifers) exist and whether public water connections could address those issues.

Staff also outlined the permitting and capacity process: development over a certain size must conduct water studies (any development over 25 EDUs must provide a water study) and Metcom monitors well meters and reports flows to the state. Metcom reported an ongoing cadence of about 150 new EDUs connecting per year, which at the current rate suggests roughly a decade of capacity at Marley Taylor unless developer-contributed expansions or reserved allocations alter the projection.

The commission asked staff to: provide maps and an itemized list of problem-sewer areas; identify which EDUs are reserved (for example, allocations set aside for the base or the college); and return with the Metcom capacity analysis once the preliminary engineering study is available. Commissioners also requested the CWSP updates be included in the comp-plan mapping so service-area boundaries align with policy decisions.

Next steps: staff will request detailed service-area maps and capacity analyses from Metcom, ask health staff to identify private-well areas of concern, and return to the planning commission with those materials at a future work session.