Residents of a section of Harris Lord Cemetery Road are a step closer to getting county water.
The Jackson County Water and sewerage Authority voted last Thursday night to enter a $51,560 contract with Engineering Management, Inc. (EMI) to design a water line extension to serve the area, where wells are going bad.
While the vote does not obligate the authority to actually build the line, it’s hard to imagine it investing over $50,000 to design a project and then abandoning it.
As part of its contract, EMI will provide four cost estimates. A worst-case-scenario estimate provided by the authority’s in-house engineer Fred Alke put the tab at $421,263.
“It’s almost a solid commitment to do a project,” manager Eric Klerk said of the engineering contract. “It’s one of those in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound kind of things.”
The authority has been considering the project since Ed Vollrath, who lives on the road, approached it this spring, citing problems with wells that are so bad some residents are forced to buy water. Vollrath has reportedly received payments or partial payments from eight residents for the initial tap fees.
“It’s a good project,” observed vice chairman Dave Ehrhardt, who presided in the absence of chairman Randall Pugh.
Responded Klerk: “The staff recommends it from a human standpoint and a redundancy standpoint.”
The 8,000-foot section of line was once part of a project to be funded by SPLOST, but was abandoned and the money diverted elsewhere. Fortunately, leftover SPLOST money is available to pay for the work.
The line is part of the overall plan to eventually tie into the Commerce water system at its dead-end on Hwy. 334. The Harris Lord Cemetery Road line will not include that connection, but it brings the two systems 8,000 feet closer to having another back-up source of water in the event of an emergency.
