If the Lowndes County School District Board of Trustees goes along with a pair of proposals presented during a board meeting Monday, the district may soon find itself all but out of the “sewer business.”
The board heard from representatives of two utility companies. One addressed an issue the district has been trying to resolve for three years at New Hope. The other dealt with the sewer system at West Lowndes.
The West Lowndes proposal was presented by Daniel Rayfield of Prairie Land and Water and its engineer, Stanley Spradling.
“What we are suggesting involves a sewer upgrade at West Lowndes High School and the alternative school,” Rayfield told the board. “What we are proposing would be building a new sewer line between the schools and take over the existing line. What that would do is allow us to connect some residential customers to the existing line. For the district, it would release the school district of any liability or maintenance costs.”
After the meeting, Rayfield said there are about 75 residences in the area that could tie in to the existing line if the school district relinquished control of the line.
“Right now, they’re all on septic systems of their own and based on what we’ve heard, most of the would be very much interested into tying in the sewer system,” Rayfield said.
The catch, however, is the cost.
Rayfield estimated it would cost $339,000 for the district to build the new sewer line.
“What you’re telling me is that you (Prairie) Land and Water would get the benefit by adding customers, but the district would pay the cost,” board president Jane Kilgore said. “I’m not sure that’s a good deal.”
Rayfield said he believed the company would consider sharing that cost.
“We didn’t come here to present a final proposal, we just wanted to bring this to your attention as a possibility,” he said. “I do believe our board would be open to talking about some cost-sharing.”
Kilgore suggested that the district talk with the utilities’ board members about the cost before moving forward on the matter.
No official proposal was presented on the plan and no vote was taken.
The board did move on another sewer issue, though.
Architect Joey Henderson, who has been working with the district on a variety of building projects, updated the board on the latest plans for a change that would transfer the sewer operations at the New Hope schools to Columbus Light & Water.
“As you know, this is something we’ve been talking about for three years,” Henderson said. “When we first considered this, the idea was to tie into the Columbus Light & Water system. We projected the cost of that would be in the $900,000 to $1 million range. But when we bid it out, the low bid came in at $1.7 million and you asked us to see if there were other options that would reduce that cost.”
Henderson said after working with CL&W director Todd Gale and engineer John Cunningham of Neel-Schaeffer, a new route was found that would greatly reduce the cost.
Henderson did not provide details of the new route Monday, but said the new sewer line would cover roughly the same distance as the route previously proposed.
“It’s still about five miles of line,” he said. “But this route is preferable because it would require less bore work, which is expensive. We project the base bid on the new route to be $1.26 million.”
The board voted 4-0 to transfer that amount of money from the district’s fund balance to cover the cost.
Board member Jacqueline Gray abstained from the vote, saying that she preferred to wait on making that decision until both the New Hope and West Lowndes sewer proposals were settled.
“You said you wanted to get out of the sewer business,” Henderson said. “If we do both projects, that would get us pretty close to that goal. The only sewer system we would be operating is the one at West Lowndes Elementary, and that’s the smallest one in the district and the easiest and cheapest for us to operate.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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