Service Area And Water Loss Caused Need For New Spencer Water Source

A combination of water loss and the spread of customers across the utility district has made Spencer consider moving on from its water source.

The Spencer City Lake reached all-time lows last summer. Engineer Nathaniel Green said city has made gains in reducing water loss, but the quantity of water is still not there to continually serve the area.

“It’s a pretty good amount of territory for only 1,975 customers I believe is about what they have,” Green said. “So, it’s a lot of area. They do have some water loss issues, but there again, there are issues not only with breaks and things in the line, it just costs so much to be able to do those things.”

Green said Spencer serves areas as far south as Baker Mountain Road and east to Rock Island. Green said the supply issues date back all the way to the 1980’s. Green said at that time, an emergency connection was installed to the Caney Fork River.

“They have certain times of the year right now where they still have to use that emergency source,” Green said. “What it does is there is actually a pipe into the lake that uses a two stage pump station. They have one pump station at the river. They have one part of the way up the mountain. They pump from the river into the lake, and then draw water from the lake.”

The city has proposed a project that would make the Caney Fork River emergency pipe into a raw water source. Green said the lake level right now sustains the customer base, but in recent years that was not always the case. Green said in the summer of 2018 and 2021, water quantities dropped.

If the water project moves forward, Green said the the city lake would be used as a backup.