COUNTY WATER GETS $1,225,000 FOR EXPANSION

The Adair County Water District will be receiving $1,225,000 in state funds to help finance a major expansion of the water system.
According to ACWD manager Lenny Stone, the funds for the district are included in this year’s state budget, and will be used to help build a new water line around the Columbia Bypass and a new 1,000,000 gallon storage tank near the new KY 61 South-Louie B. Nunn Parkway interchange.
“This new project is going to be a great step for the water district, and will allow us to do things we’ve never been able to do before,” Stone said.
The total cost of the new water line/storage tank project will be around $4 million, and Stone said they have applied for other federal and state funds to complete the financing of it.
“We’ve applied for a $1,500,000 grant from the state’s Economic Development Authority, and we’re also applying for a grant and loan from Rural Development,” he explained. “If we get those funds and still need some more money to complete the project, we’ll apply for Fund F one percent loan from the state.”
Stone said the water district is in the process of completing the paperwork for the Economic Development Authority grant and the Rural Development grant/loan, and they hope to find out about those monies by late summer.
“When you have a project like this where you’re seeking funding from different sources, you’ve got to have a trigger to get things going,” he said. “We hope this state money is the trigger that gets us the other funding we need.”
The water lines for the bypass and the new storage tank are the third phase of the water district’s long-term improvement and expansion plan, Stone said.
“The first phase was to get the new water plant at Green River built and producing water, and that’s been  done and paid for,” he explained.
“The second phase was to run a new 12” water line from the new industrial park to the new 500,000 storage tank near the old Shepherd school on Highway 206,” he continued. “Work on this project is going very quickly and should be completed within the next month-and-a-half.
“When that phase is done, it will allow us to draw water from the new plant to serve the areas (Knifley, Millerfield, East 80) that we’re presently having to buy water from Campbellsville and Russell Springs to supply.”
After the third phase is completed, Stone said that a future fourth phase will be to run new water lines to the KY 55 South area so they can eliminate buying water from Jamestown to supply that area.
“Our goal to get our system in shape so that we can supply the entire county with water from the new plant, and not have to buy water from other districts,” Stone said. “However, we’re going to leave these connections in place, so that if we ever need to buy water from Campbellsville, Russell Springs or Jamestown, we can. Or we will be able to sell them water if they need it.”
Once they get Phase three done, Stone said they will be able to do a lot of things they are not capable of doing now.
“We won’t have to run all of the water through the city like we have to now,” he said. “We’ll be able to feed water in several different ways. It’s also going to be the first step in setting us up to be able  to sell water to other districts.”
Stone said that a lot of people worked hard to ensure the water district received the state funds.
“This (project) speaks a lot about the people in Adair County,” he said. “We had a lot of people –the mayor, the judge, the magistrates, Sen. McGaha, Sen. McConnell, and others who worked diligently to get this project funded, and we appreciate all of their work.”