News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Jackson County working to extend and rehab the water line in four areas of the county.
Mayor Randy Heady said those areas include Big Branch, Lambert Hollar, Sycamore Hollar, and Spring Fork Creek Road. He said that the project has been in the works since he first took office.
“One of the landowners was in here the other day, they dug two more wells and those were bad,” Heady said. “So the potential of getting water down there, this needs to happen.”
Heady said that the county teamed up with utility districts to prioritize areas that needed water line rehab and extension the most. Heady said that the projects had taken so long to get underway because of concern with depreciation. He said that sometimes the cost of depreciation can cause rates to go up from $2 to $5 per customer per bill. Heady said that based on the conversations and the ability of Jackson County Utility District to assume the depreciation, that is how they prioritized which lines were extended and which were rehabbed.
Heady said that right now, they estimate the work will use some $1.9 million of the county’s $3.4 million ARP funds. Heady said that the county commission approved a resolution to use the remaining ARP funds to help Gainesboro rehab its water treatment plant.
“Because that’s the water plant that we get a majority of our water from, not all of our water,” Heady said. “But we wanted to help them rehab the water plant that they have and maybe even double the capacity to provide water to the parts of the county that they’re unable to do.”
Heady said that the next step is to send the project to the grant portal soon. He said once they get approval, they’ll start the bidding and engineering process.
