News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Cookeville City Council will consider amending the Double Springs Utility District Contract during its Thursday meeting.
The utility district has agreed to let Baxter serve a development using resold Cookeville water at the North East Intersection of Highway 56 and Highway 70. Water and Sewer Department Director Ronnie Kelly said the area falls under Double Springs, and the current contract does not allow reselling water.
“There is language in there that the district agrees to not sale water delivered to it under this agreement to any existing customers of Cookeville,” Kelly said. “And since Baxter is a customer of Cookeville, there has to be a contract amendment done to allow them to do that.”
Kelly said the amendment is to only serve the development, and Baxter can not extend beyond that point. Kelly said the language of the contract was put into place, so an utility district could not buy Cookeville’s water through another source.
“Many many years ago when we were negotiating contracts and renegotiating contracts with utility districts and wanted to keep some leverage if a utility district reached its capacity,” Kelly said. “And we couldn’t agree with something that they couldn’t turn around and buy from one of the other districts and supplement their feed and bypass our contract.”
Kelly said if the city council approves the memorandum, it will move on to Rural Development for final approval. The Baxter Board of Aldermen and the Double Springs Utility District have already approved the move.
