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NATCHEZ — The property the county owns under the auspices of the St. Catherine Creek Utility Authority costs the county between $15,000 and $20,000 each year to maintain.

District 4 Supervisor Ricky Gray wants to know what the county gets in return for that property.

Chandler Russ, who is executive director of Natchez Inc. and was also appointed president of the St. Catherine Creek Utility Authority, was at the county supervisors’ meeting Thursday morning to request the annual appropriation for the authority.

He told Gray that other than perhaps harvesting and selling timber on the property, the value to the county is negligible.

“Historically, before I got here, the utility authority was created on land that runs along St. Catherine Creek from the former International Paper Company landfill behind St. Catherine Ready Mix all the way to the river,” Russ said after the meeting.

The land consists of a large, capped landfill and another landfill, which is still open, but is only authorized to take construction waste, he said.

“That property was separated out when Rentech bought the property from International Paper. It was separated out and given to the county and the utility authority,” Russ said. “It consists of about 360 acres I’m guessing and costs about $1,500 a month to maintain. As a utility authority, we get an appropriation from the county to cut it and maintain it and removal of the leachate coming off of the landfill that is captured.

“Perhaps the county can sell some timber. It’s mostly hardwood timber that follows the creek and maybe that could be harvested and generate some revenue,” Russ told Gray.

“What it really boils down to is the property itself is mostly that area that is a capped landfill, which means the landfill is full and basically you cover it in dirt and a rubber cell that goes around it is capped. You could not do any subsurface construction there. It really had no value to anybody. There are simply so many restrictions on it. You could not build on it. Maybe you could put some gravel on top of it and park cars. That’s about it,” Russ said. “The other property along the creek is mostly in the flood plain. It has no marketable value.”

He said the original intent in forming the utility authority was to handle the large wastewater the Rentech facility was expected to produce.

“The wastewater IP was producing roughly 40 million gallons a day. In comparison, all of Natchez produces roughly 2.5 to 3 million per day. So the idea originally, again before I got here, was to be the utility provider to handle that wastewater, which would have been a revenue source for the county,” Russ said. “Well, we all know what happened with Rentech. The county is kind of just stuck with it now.”