The city is about to embark on an ambitious $6.9 million water and sewer project, but not until the city council approves it next Monday night.
City Manager Jack Yates said he plans go forward with the project, which has been made possible with funds from the U.S. Rural Development Administration.
“This is a huge project for us,” Yates said.
City officials met with financial managers Monday night to discuss the costs of the proposed work, and whether or not the city could afford the loan portion of the project.
“At this point we’ve told RDA we intend to do the project,” he said.
Of the money being used for the work, $2.4 million comes from a government grant. The rest, roughly $4.5 million, is a loan with a 2.75 percent interest rate. Yates said the loan will be paid back through a sales tax increase that was voted on and approved in October 2008.
Yates said the near 7 million dollars worth of construction, set to start next spring if approved, is sure to bring jobs to Tishomingo.
The project is an overhaul of Tishomingo’s water and sewer system, including improvement and repairs to the city’s water and sewer treatment plants and replacement of almost a third of the city’s water and sewer lines. Rainwater infiltration is another very important problem the project will remedy.
For every one inch of rain, the Tishomingo sewer system takes on an extra 400,000 gallons of water. That additional water has to be pumped through the city’s 13 lift stations and processed at the sewer treatment plant, costing the city money.
The money for the project is coming from the stimulus package passed by the federal government. Yates says that there’s no other source for the funds needed for the project.
“There’s no other source of this large amount of money to do as much as we need to do in our system,” he said. “There’s no other place where we could begin to get that money.”
phil.banker@ardmoreite.com
Phil Banker 221-6542
