By Brittany Woodby

BWOODBY@CULLMANTIMES.COM

As the area’s water supply dwindles, Cullman’s city and the county leaders are working on plans to secure a lasting additional water source to carry residents not only through the drought, but through increased water demands in the future. For nearly 15 years, the City of Cullman has sought the advice of engineers who have advocated building a dam on Duck River and creating a reservoir capable of producing enough water to meet the county’s needs for the next 50 years. County officials, however, have hesitated on the project since the beginning and instead have favored a plan to draw water from the Tennessee River. As Lake Catoma’s levels fall each day, the push to solve the area’s water problem has reached a critical point and both the city and the county are ready to put some plan in action to avoid an impending crisis.

The first time in the area’s recent history when the potential for a water shortage was realized was in 1993. Cullman County was renowned for its booming poultry industry and pumped millions of dollars into the state's economy. Local officials began assessing the industry and determined there was one large threat to its continued success in Cullman County---diminishing water supply. At that time, the City of Cullman and the Cullman Utilities Board formed the Cullman/Morgan Water District, which was made up of the mayor of Cullman, the chairman of the Cullman County Commission and the Morgan County commissioner from Morgan County's District 3. It was later expanded to include a representative for the independent water systems and another representative from the City of Cullman.

Since the late 1960s, Cullman County has received water from Lake Catoma, which is capable of producing 18-20 million gallons of water a day. However, experts predicted population growth and industry would overload Catoma's production ability and the city's demands for water would exceed 23 million gallons a day by 2015. If Catoma failed in the meantime, due to potential contamination or natural disaster, the result could be a devastating $85 million to the poultry industry statewide from just two days without water.

Collectively, the water district enlisted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to find the most efficient and economical solution to the area's impending water emergency, then two decades away. The corps, along with additional engineers and researchers, came to the conclusion that of all the available water sources in the area, damming the Duck River in northeast Cullman County to construct a 650-acre reservoir was the best answer.

When it came time to discuss financing of the project, the water district decided to go through the Cullman Utilities Board to pay for it.

“This way it didn’t go against the debt limit of the city or the county,” Duck River Project Manager Dale Greer said.

The utilities board needed 30-year-contracts from its water customers to pay for the 30-year-bond it intended to take out in order to pay for the dam.

“All the customers agreed to participate in Duck River,” Greer said. “We had to have 33 people sign and we got 32 of the 33 to sign the agreement.”

The only person who did not agree to the agreement was former Cullman County Commission Chairman George Spear.

In 1998, when the city moved closer to beginning construction on the dam, Spear said he was opposed to the project because signing a 30-year contract meant staying a customer of the city utilities board for at least 30 more years.

“It really all boils down to this: Cullman County, in 30 years do you still want to be a renter or an owner?” he said.

Instead, Spear favored a move towards splitting from the city water service, and taking with it 40 percent of the utilities board’s customer base, to create a county-owned water system. To do that, Spear proposed building a water treatment plant on Smith Lake at an estimated cost of $24 million. The end result, he said, would be paying to construct something the county would have control over.