Washington’s City Council, during its meeting Monday, will consider authorizing City Manager Brian Alligood to negotiate a sewer-capacity agreement with the Town of Chocowinity.

Chocowinity wants to purchase an additional capacity if 8,450 gallons per day so it can better serve the rest area to be built along U.S. Highway 17 south of the town, according to a memorandum from Allen Lewis, the city’s public-works director, to the mayor and council. Under the current agreement between the city and town, the town pays $10 per gallon of capacity. The rest area will be in the town’s extraterritorial jurisdiction but not in the town limits.

Last month, the council instructed Alligood and city staff to work with Chocowinity officials to determine the town’s future sewer needs inside the town limits and outside those limits so the city can better determine how Chocowinity’s future sewer needs could affect the city’s wastewater-treatment system.

Chocowinity pays the city for sewer capacity in the city’s wastewater removal system and to treat the town’s sewage at the city’s sewage-treatment plant. Under state law, once a municipality’s wastewater-treatment system reaches 80-percent capacity, it must start designing a new system or an expansion of the existing system. Once that system reaches 90-percent capacity, the municipality must build a new system or expand the existing system, according to state law.

Currently, the city’s system is at 60-percent capacity, according to Lewis.