FOLEY, Ala. — Baldwin County Sewer Service Inc. (BCSS) isn’t willing to negotiate with the City of Foley for acquisition of the portion of the company’s sewerage system located within the city.

That’s the assessment of Michael M. Dugger, general manager and CEO of Riviera Utilities, in a April 30, 2008, letter to Mayor John Koniar.

According to Dugger’s letter, Riviera submitted a “formal request” to BCSS on Jan. 7, 2008, asking BCSS officials “to enter into negotiations with Riviera for the sale/purchase of that portion of the BCSS system located with the City of Foley.”

The city had attempted the same acquisition process with BCSS in 2005.

While Dugger notes Riviera has not yet received a written response from BCSS to date, he also notes he met with BCSS officers and their response was essentially the same as that in 2005, namely, “that ‘the sale of any part of the system would be in conflict with the current operational and financial goals of their company’.”

“Accordingly, they were simply not willing to negotiate for the sale of any portion of their system,” Dugger said in his letter to Koniar.

“Therefore, the straightforward answer to your question about the feasibility of Riviera acquiring the portion of the sewer system owned by Baldwin County Sewer Service, located within the corporate limits of Foley, is simply that it is not feasible, or even for sale at this time.”

In the letter, Dugger also addresses the matter of Riviera going into a residential subdivision served by BCSS and implementing a “parallel system.” He notes Riviera’s staff could not come up with a “reasonable or feasible way to accomplish this.

“Regarding Riviera’s present ability to accept the additional flow from the customers presently served by BCSS within the City of Foley, I must report that the addition of these customers would consume virtually all the available capacity of our treatment system and would require numerous upgrades to the existing collection and transmission system, as well as the treatment plant,” Dugger said in the letter.

Koniar said Tuesday that the city’s interest in acquiring the portion of BCSS’s system in Foley came about as a result of citizens’ requests to see if it was feasible.

He cited GlenLakes as one area that made the request of the city due to rate hikes by BCSS.

According to its Web site, BCSS, formed in 1998, has approximately 11,200 customers and capacity to service 20,000.

The company maintains 2.5 million feet of sewer force mains and over 140 lift stations covering 450 square miles from Fort Morgan to Bay Minette.