October 24, 2022
By: Dwayne Page
For years the DeKalb Utility District has had to purchase water from the City of Baxter to serve its own customers in the Cherry Hill and Silver Point areas in DeKalb County because there is no water line across Hurricane Bridge over Center Hill Lake to connect them. That may change thanks to available American Rescue Plan Funds through the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.
During Monday night’s regular monthly meeting, the County Commission adopted a resolution to make application for the funds on behalf of the DeKalb Utility District as well as the DeWhite Utility District and the City of Baxter which all serve portions of DeKalb County and who are looking to meet their own water improvement needs. The Upper Cumberland Development District is to administer the grants.
Under the program, DeKalb County is eligible for a maximum grant of $3,730,767 through TDEC’s American Recovery Plan which can only be used for critical water needs as identified by local utility districts. The local grant match is to be funded half by the county using its own available ARP funds and half by the utilities for their specific projects.
DeKalb Utility District has identified as its most critical need extending a water line across Hurricane Bridge to directly serve its own customers (approximately 200 meters) there which is expected to bring down costs to the utility. The total project is two million dollars with a $300,000 local grant match to be funded half by DUD and half from DeKalb County ARP funds.
According to DUD Manager Jon Foutch, this TDEC ARP grant program can only be used by the utility to address prioritized critical needs and not to extend water lines to new customers.
“Its not to do just anything we want to. If we have critical needs in our system, we are supposed to address those first because we had to fill out a score card. It’s a requirement,” said Foutch in an interview with WJLE.
Extending a water line across Hurricane Bridge to serve existing customers topped the list as the most critical need for the DUD.
“We (DUD) had to give them (county) a list of what we thought we needed to spend money on and we have been talking about this (Hurricane Bridge) project since 2010. We didn’t know how we were going to be able to do this project without putting a burden on our existing customers. We have been kind of kicking it down the road. For a while we even looked at doing it in phases just so we could get it in,” Foutch said.
The reason this project is so critical according to Foutch is that the DUD and its consumers are having to bear the costs of purchasing this water from the City of Baxter, who has to buy its supply from the City of Cookeville, which produces it and all that pass through inflates the cost of getting the water to consumers in DeKalb County.
Foutch said the DUD has learned that those costs may go even higher in the near future.
“The reason we call this a critical need is we have been told over there (Baxter) that we (DUD) will start paying $12.18 per thousand wholesale. We have a wholesale customer that we produce water for, and we charge them $3.20 per thousand which we think is a reasonable rate but $12.18 is one of the highest rates in the state. That is why this (project) is high on our list because those customers across that bridge are really being taken advantage of and its currently out of our control,” said Foutch
Foutch said If DUD is able to provide water across the bridge it would be a benefit to both DUD and the City of Baxter especially in the event of an emergency. “The master meter where we buy from Baxter would be an emergency connection back to Baxter to serve them or if something happens, we could buy from them again,” said Foutch.
In addition to this project, Foutch said the grant program requires the DUD to produce an asset management plan and a water model.
“If a big subdivision or factory came in we could look at our model and tell them how much water is available at that point. We don’t have that now. We have always wanted to do that but haven’t had the funds to get it done so that is also part of our critical needs,” Foutch said.
If the grant is approved, the DUD would also need approval from the state to actually extend the water line across Hurricane Bridge.
Meanwhile, DeWhite Utility District has identified as its critical need the rehabilitation of the Smithville Highway Waterline in DeKalb County. The total project is $1,453,684 with a $218,052 local grant match to be funded half by DeWhite Utility District and half from DeKalb County ARP funds.
The City of Baxter has identified as its critical need a waterline rehabilitation serving the Wolf Creek Community of DeKalb County. The total project cost is $777,778 with a local grant match of $77,778 to be funded half by the City of Baxter and half from DeKalb County ARP funds.
The UCDD project administration costs total $111,923 with a local match of $16,788 from DeKalb County ARP funds.