Leaking ahead

A landowner from the area near Green Mountain Cemetery asked the council for its help on Tuesday after receiving an unusually hefty water bill. The line to his property has broken, he said, because the old pipe is deteriorating.

The landowner, Paul Stuart, requested that the city find out how much it would cost to bring the newer waterline in the area across Fuller Road to his property. He offered to contribute to this cost and stated he would take responsibility for re-piping from that point on.

Stuart is looking for “some way we can work together to get this problem cured,” he said.

“Something needs to be done,” agreed Council Member Brad Marchant after hearing an explanation from Mayor Paul Brooks as to what caused the issue. Essentially, the property is left over from other upgrades in the area and was never brought over from the old Green Mountain water district.

“We have some responsibility as a city in providing water and making sure that water is safe,” said the mayor. “The other side is, it’s fairly hard for us spending money willy nilly because we don’t have any.”

Karla Greaser of Trihydro had prepared a very rough estimate of cost in the short time since hearing about the issue, she said, but had not had time for a full study. Based purely on the costs of the city’s most recent waterline project, she suggested $65 per foot for an eight-inch line coming from the Croell Redi-Mix buildings.

The line must be eight inches, she explained, due to Department of Environmental Quality rules for fire protection if the water is only coming from one direction.

At somewhere in the region of 1400 feet, Greaser provided a rough estimate that bringing the line from the Croell buildings across Fuller Road would cost of $91,000. She stressed that this is not a fixed number and is based solely on costs for the 21st Street loop.

Brooks expressed his opinion that the adjacent landowner should be a stakeholder in the project as he will benefit from the upgrade as it will make his land more developable. Meanwhile, the council wondered if the project could fit with requirements for the next batch of Abandoned Mine Land funding.

The council agreed to investigate costs for the project and speak with the adjacent landowner.