During the Tellico Village Property Owners Association Board Meeting on Jan. 31 at the Tellico Village Yacht Club, board members gave a brief update on the Tellico Village Water Authority and where the whole process stands today.
“As you know the Water Authority has been put on hold,” TVPOA president Bob Brunetti said. “We are still waiting for some answers from Nashville concerning the water authority and how that will work. When this was brought to the board about six months ago now, the board gave Chet (Pillsbury) the okay to investigate this and what’s it all about and how it will work, etc.
“And as we got into it a little further, there were a lot of questions that arose,” he added, “So we brought them to the Village and to the property owners. There are a lot of questions to which the answer was ‘I don’t know’ and that didn’t sit well with a lot of people, and I can understand that.”
The lack of answers were concerning to the board and to the community. Brunetti explained that as the board journeyed further into the process, another big issue came up concerning a Tennessee statute.
“Tennessee statute on Water Authority says a city, metropolitan or county government may create a Water Authority, and obviously Tellico Village is not any one of those … we’re a private corporation,” Brunetti said. “So we’re not covered by the statute for water authorities, which means we have to have a special act to come along for it.
“So before going any further, putting together budgets and plans and how to work through the word bylaws, etc., we asked the attorney general in the state of Tennessee to weigh in on this.”
The board asked the attorney general the simple question: “Can a private corporation, such as Tellico Village, spin off its water and sewer into a separate authority or quasi-government authority?”
As of the meeting on Jan. 31, the state of Tennessee has yet to answer that question.
Despite early hurdles, Brunetti reassured the board that a water authority is a viable solution to Tellico Village’s water and sewer problems, but the lack of clear answers has made the decision to go forward problematic.
The decision was made to put the water authority project on hold for a year, instead of wasting time, effort and resources. Brunetti shared his belief that to come up with all the plans and budgets together just for them to be denied would be pointless.
“If it’s ‘no’ then the water authorities is a dead issue, and it’s never going to happen,” he said. “If it’s a ‘yes,’ they’re going to go further and start putting together budget plans, how its going to work, how it will be set up and who’s going to be on the authority.
“But, until then, there is no sense of doing anything at this point in time.”
One of the main reasons the board is pushing to establish its own water authority is because the current infrastructure is aging and needs significant upgrades.
Tellico’s water and sewer system is nearly 40 years old; and when the Tellico Village community was first being developed, Loudon County was a much more rural area.
The Tennessee Valley Authority explained to the TVPOA members that if they wanted to do these upgrades to their own sewer and water system in Tellico Village, they would have to do it themselves. That is why the TVPOA owns its own sewer and water systems.
According to the Tellico Village Public Works Department, in 2021 there were 336 sewer line and valve leaks, as well as 202 waterline leaks. In 2022, 237 sewer line leaks and about 158 waterline leaks were reported. Last year, there were 295 sewer line and valve leaks and 182 waterline leaks.
While the majority of the leaks were minor and only required minor maintenance, the concern is that they could potentially lead to larger problems.
Tellico Village has experienced two major leaks in the past two months. Two weeks ago, a leak into Dalloway caused the water for the whole area to be shut off for three or four hours. And two months ago on Sequoyah Road, there was a major water leak reported that resulted in about six hours of shut-off water for the area.
Currently, when a major leak happens, a third-party company comes in and fixes the problem. Tellico Village doesn’t have the equipment to dig down to where some of these pipes are located — due to them being 10 feet below the surface or greater.
Outsourcing means the cost steadily builds. In 2021, the TVPOA paid $283,277 to fix the major leaks. The next year, the TVPOA paid $219,513; and in 2023 the TVPOA spent $209,241 fixing the major leaks. In total, Tellico Village spent well over $700,000 in repairs over the last three years.
“If we had a Water Authority it would become their responsibility,” Brunetti said. “It would still have to be paid, but (a local authority) can get loans for upgrades, they can sell bonds, and they can possibly get grants in the future — so (the funds) wouldn’t come directly out of our pockets like it is now.”
