Light at end of sewer pipe

You couldn’t help but feel for Eureka Town Board members who were wringing their hands over the massive sewer bills. There seemed to be no solution.
As some had suggested, maybe the town should go away, dissolve itself, and maybe somehow the debt would go away. Like declaring personal bankruptcy, yeah, that’s the ticket.
To their credit, the board members didn’t run away, or crawl away to a hole, curl up and die. They accepted the responsibility, and while some may want to complain, and they probably will, the town is on the road back.
I also praise the League of Municipalities. They stepped in and helped the town board to feel better about their situation. They pointed out that while the town might feel they are incapable of dealing with the debt the town was in, Eureka was in better shape than most towns.
I appreciate the willingness of the state to allow Fremont to re-open their spray field.
With recurring problems with small municipal sewer treatment plant spills, the state had adopted a policy of pushing regional treatment of sewer. With larger, more dependable and better financed systems and employees, there would be fewer problems to monitor and fewer spilling systems to try to get fixed.
The state has had some genuine compassion for both Fremont and Eureka with the high bills they are facing from the Goldsboro system. There was some discussion sometime back of trying to act on the smaller towns’ behalf in negotiating lower rates.
When the Fremont spray field is opened, the state has offered to act on Eureka’s behalf to negotiate a rate reduction for Eureka based upon Fremont’s lower cost for treating sewer sent to the field as opposed to the rates paid Goldsboro.
From another perspective, Fremont has been working through their sewer problems for a long time. There have been a number of mayors, town boards, and administrators. There have been a lot of grants along the way, but the town citizens have put many sewer dollars as well as tax dollars into trying to fix a deep down problem.
While the costs of repaying the bond issues will continue for some time to come, Fremont is nearing a time when most of their problems will be behind them. The seeming never ending repairs and rehabilitation of sewer lines will never be completely over, but the big stuff is behind us.
The town has suffered through big sewer bills and the complaints that generated, and the discouragement to new businesses and residents coming to the town. Struggling to have enough sewer capacity to handle their leaky system, with rainwater and ground water flowing into the system, there was little capacity left for growth.
Fremont’s sewer hole is significantly deeper, and the town has had to work through it for a longer period of time. In some ways, it may have seemed just as dark to Fremont as Eureka’s has to its town board.
Today there is some light at the end of that sewer line, too. There are brighter days ahead.
It won’t come too soon for many of us.

The News Leader is making a change in our sports focus. While coverage of Aycock will continue to be our primary focus with our sports coverage, and with the number of sports teams fielded at Aycock, that will be no small undertaking, we will be moving up coverage of Norwayne as our secondary sports focus.
Sarah Wise, our Wayne-Wilson News Leader reporter, and I met with the Norwayne coaching staff recently to announce the change and to ask their help. I think it is fair to say they were most enthusiastic in their response.
Let me confess that this has been a change that has been urged from the inside. As most of you know, we have been offering some coverage of Norwayne over the years, but now we will be increasing the numbers and length of stories, and the number of photos. One of our local sports cheerleaders and long-time office manager, Rosie Colvin, has been urging for years that we offer more coverage of Norwayne sports.
We hope you enjoy some of the sports spotlight being shifted to some of our younger athletes.