A proposed water project could help attract economic development, assist with fire suppression efforts, and provide residents in the Town of LaPaz with quality drinking water, but town officials need funding help to get to that point.
Town of LaPaz Clerk-Treasurer Lorraine Dove and Linda Sanders from Wessler Engineering went before the Marshall County Commissioners Monday morning and the separate later meeting of the American Rescue Plan Act Committee to ask for funding help in a quest to construct a water system.
Sanders discussed the proposed project.
“Basically, what they’re looking at is bringing water from the school [Union-North United School Corporation] down to LaPaz,” explained Sanders. “They would need two wells, a water tower, and the package plant. It’s about 49,000 linear feet of distribution lines. It’s bare minimum, but SRF [State Revolving Loan] came back and said you have all of these reports done that basically say that, yes, LaPaz is committed and the community is committed. All of these reports, easements, well studies – it comes to about $430,000.”
Dove stressed that the project would be a positive move for the Town of LaPaz.
Dove stated, “The only way to make our town grow and be a better asset for Marshall County is to have water. Right now everybody is using well water. Some of our citizens have bad wells so we’ve been looking at this project. We hired Wessler Engineering to do a preliminary study for us. We’ve already submitted a report to the SRF and then they gave us suggestions on where to go from here.”
The complete the overall project, which is a small package plant – the smallest facility available, is estimated at this time at $21 million.
Town officials are seeking State Revolving Fund loans, grants or other means available to assist the town with funding for the project.
The cost at this time to get through this next phase is $430,000 which is the amount requested of the commissioners and the committee.
Commissioner Kevin Overmyer supported half of the funding request from the American Rescue Plan Act Funds and half from the Rainy Day Fund, but Commission President Stan Klotz suggested taking the request to the American Rescue Plan Act Committee for a recommendation. Commissioner Michael Burroughs was not in attendance.
The American Rescue Plan Act Committee met later in the day Monday where the members entertained the request.
The members include Commission President Stan Klotz, Marshall County Council President Jesse Bohannon, Councilman Tim Harman and Councilwoman Nicole Cox.
The committee members had specific questions regarding what the water rates for residents would be which cannot be answered until funding is in place and a rate study can be conducted.
Dove said a survey will be put together for residents to gather community responses concerning this particular project. The town needs 85 percent support for the project.
The committee members are generally in support of the funding, but they asked for more documentation concerning the project and public support.
