SENECA — Sewer oversight in Oconee County likely will remain in the hands of the two-headed Sewer Commission/Oconee Joint Regional Sewer Authority for the remainder of 2008 and well into the new year.

Sewer officials this week approved a position statement indicating that the Commission/Authority would continue to operate jointly “until certain legal, contractual, financial and administrative issues are settled.”

At Monday night’s Commission/Authority meeting, the group’s attorney, Lowell Ross, noted that one of the contractual issues still unsettled is the failure of the county and sewer-operating cities to sign a new Sewer, Water Action Group (SWAG) agreement.

“The cities passed it and signed the agreement, but for reasons unknown to me the county won’t sign it,” Ross said at the meeting.

On Feb. 28, 2005, then Oconee County Council Chairman Frank Ables and the mayors of Seneca, Westminster, Walhalla, West Union and Sewer Commission Chairman Howard Adams signed the SWAG agreement. The agreement expires March 31, 2018.

As part of the shift from a Sewer Commission controlled by the County Council to an autonomous Sewer Authority, it became clear that a new SWAG agreement had to be approved. However, disagreements over the expiration date of a new SWAG deal, and possible concerns over Article V of the agreement that deals with the county’s $609,947 annual payments to the cities to repay an $8.2 million bonded indebtedness to upgrade the Coneross Wastewater Treatment Plant, are holding up a new contract.

A legal issue that is also holding up the transition to a Sewer Authority is a lawsuit filed by local activist Susie Cornelius and others referencing the $609,947 payments made by the county and other issues pertaining to water, water rates and special legislation.

Although Ross said the Sewer Commission/Authority is not a party in the lawsuit, Cornelius’ attorney said he would amend the complain to include the Authority. So far, that has not happened.