City gets ARPA grant for water project

The City of Sundance has been awarded just over $1.3 million to fix a major water leak during the second round of applications for the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding designated for local government projects.

Unfortunately, due to a hiccup with the fire department’s email, the city was not successful in securing finding to refurbish the fire hall.

The city fell just shy of the final shortlist for the first round of ARPA funding late last year, when the State Loans and Investments Board (SLIB) received 113 applications with a grand total of $225,481,868 in requested funding between them.

This time around, the council opted to combine two related projects on its list and make just one application. The intent of the 3rd Street Waterline and Cleveland Street project is to repair a major water leak through which the city estimates it is losing 50,000 gallons of water per day, and to relocate service taps located on an old, four-inch galvanized waterline.

This time, SLIB was able to recommend 33 projects for funding from a total of 77, including Sundance’s request.

Public Works Director Mac Erickson said last week that the city will aim to begin pursuing the project first thing this spring.

Unfortunately, the Sundance Volunteer Fire Department was less lucky.

“I’m not as happy,” said Fire Chief Gari Gill.

He explained that the department’s email account was suspended for unknown reasons, which meant he did not receive a notification that SLIB needed extra information on the application.

“We lost out on the ARPA funding,” Gill confirmed.

The $535,000 requested on this second application would have been used to upgrade the current fire hall to increase the available storage for equipment and create space for volunteers to meet.