Perryville officials are asking a property owner seeking to annex into town near the Great Wolf Lodge project to include another planned hotel and other development into its infrastructure study to get a true reading on the town’s wastewater needs.

Perryville officials are asking a property owner seeking to annex into town near the Great Wolf Lodge project to include another planned hotel and other development into its infrastructure study to get a true reading on the town’s wastewater needs.

PERRYVILLE — With expansion plans already in the works to accommodate the water needs for Great Wolf Lodge town officials learned recently that expansion may not be enough.

“We have a request from Bartlett Center Properties for annexation of a property across from Chesapeake Overlook,” Dianna Battaglia, Perryville Planner, told the mayor and commissioners.

Commissioner Bob Taylor asked if connection fees that would be charged for access to Perryville’s municipal water and wastewater systems would cover those expansion costs.

“This is going to require additional capacity,” Taylor said.

Perryville is already working on expanding its system to provide the daily water needs of what has been dubbed the largest water park in the Great Wolf Resorts portfolio. With two water slides, a lazy river, splash pad and pools, not to mention several restaurants, and 750 hotels rooms, the project expects to use from 150,000 to 180,000 gallons of water every day. Then there’s the issue of wastewater capacity.

“If they are off by even 10% that’s 15,000 gallons per day,” Taylor said. “Hypothetically we are going from $1 million to $2 million in costs.”

Those costs include adding more pumping stations or expanding existing pumps to move the wastewater. Taylor suggested that this annexation request be worded in a way that includes a share in the cost of any needed expansion.

“The town can specify what you require of them to come into town,” Taylor said.

George Patchell, town administrator, said the property owners are well aware of the cost of the annexation.

“Just a few months ago ... they had a study by AECOM,” he told the board. That study included the cost of investing in the upgrade of Pumping Station #1.

“That study did not include what else already needs Pumping Station #1,” Patchell said. “It excludes the hotel property and any residential component.”

“For us to get a true picture we need to include the properties that were excluded from the study,” he said.

Perryville’s water treatment system runs 10 hours per day to meet its current daily demands of 350,000 gallons, but would have to go to 20 hours to be able to produce enough water for Great Wolf. In January, the town decided instead to purchase two more membrane trains and place them alongside the current pair at a potential cost of $4.3 million. With that expansion, the town expected to be able to also meet other development needs that were in the works at that time. Project costs to the town would be covered by American Rescue Plan Act grants.

Patchell said pipes are not the problem this time, but rather the pumping station capacities.

“We need to increase the size of the pump,” he said of the #1 station, which will serve Great Wolf Lodge and surrounding properties. “We need to make sure we can serve what’s already there before we add others.”

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