Cookeville To Vote On Two Sewer Expansion Projects

Cookeville City Council will consider moving forward on two separate sewer projects at its Thursday meeting.

Water and Sewer Department Director Barry Turner told city council at Monday’s work session that the bid is to install sewer lines in the area around the South Creek Subdivision. Turner said that project will cost some $1.2 million using low pressure sewer systems where each house has its own pump maintained by the city.

“South Creek was actually one that was promised sewer when it was annexed, I think that was twenty years ago, that it had to be installed by I think 2027,” Turner said. “So that’s been in the works.”

Turner said there is also an agreement to extend sewer services to an upcoming subdivision on Mine Lick Creek Road adjacent to Bush Road. Turner said the city would pay to add sewer taps to the existing residencies in the Park West Subdivision that the sewer extension will have to go around.

“We’d be cost sharing the cost of extending the line with our estimate $506,000,” Turner said. “So the developer would put $253,000, we’d do $253,000 plus that cost of those services, so our cost would be about $400,000.”

Turner said the new sewer taps will add forty-two new customers from Park West and the extension would include forty-nine from the new subdivision. Turner said the city’s spending on the project is capped at $400,000 and the developer is required to manage the engineering and easement acquisition for the work.

“It’s a project we’ve got to get done anyway, so this speeds it all up,” City Manager James Mills said. “Barry (Turner), we’ve had a least a half dozen of these in the last few years so they’ve all worked out well as far as I know.”

Turner said the South Creek project will extend into the nearby Bunker Hill and Lovelady areas, but not the Rebecca Place subdivision which also needs sewer services by 2027. Turner said design work is underway to add sewer for Rebecca Place soon.