The county sewer system is now operating in Goat Neck community, Johnny Spencer, utilities director, reported to the Tyrrell County commissioners recently.

“All homes are hooked to the sewer system and pumping to the lift station,” he stated. “The lift station is pumping to the Town of Columbia wastewater plant.”

Seventeen residences are the initial users of a collection network that extends along Fort Landing, Sound Side, and New roads to the town wastewater treatment plant behind the fire station at Columbia.

The county commissioners probably will establish monthly rates for the Alligator system on August 7.

Despite Spencer’s announcement, Tim Oliver, Columbia’s water and sewer superintendent, said July 24 that the county’s inflow meter at the town’s sewage treatment plant was still reading “zero.”

Oliver’s statement may be explained by the fact that each household’s new holding tank first must be filled partially, and then the wastewater from the 17 houses is pumped through 12 miles of new, unused pipes that lie between Goat Neck community and Columbia’s treatment plant.

Plans are afoot to extend sewer service along Newfoundland, Old U.S. 64, and Ludford roads, all in the northeastern sector of the county where many existing homes are on lots with high subsurface water tables and also susceptible to flooding after every heavy rain.

Joyce Sykes Fitch, a Ludford Road resident, announced to county commissioners on July 17 that the district health department had declined her request for a septic tank permit after the ground failed the standard percolation test.

Tyrrell’s first venture into sewage collection and disposal began in 2001 with planning for a network in Scuppernong, the northwestern section of the county. It became operational in August 2012 and now serves about 300 users. The Town of Creswell treats and discharges the effluent from the Scuppernong system.