By Brittany Woodby

BWOODBY@CULLMANTIMES.COM

Several area water systems are reaching out of Cullman County to get additional water.

Steve Newton, engineer with the city-hired firm CH2M Hill, met with representatives from the city’s wholesale water customers Wednesday to discuss additional conservation efforts and temporary plans for the drought emergency.

Newton encouraged the individual systems to participate in an integrated water management plan, which combines conservation with interconnection to secure supplemental drinking water from other systems.

Cullman County Water Superintendent David Bussman said the county system made arrangements to purchase up to 500,000 gallons of water a day from neighboring systems including Arley, Blount County and Northeastern Morgan County. He said while the three systems agreed to sell water to Cullman County, each required the county to sign a service contract to purchase water for a certain amount of time. Presently, the county is under contract to buy water from the City of Cullman. Though the city gave the county permission to buy water from other water systems, it required the county to return to full city service once the drought emergency is over.

“We’re unable to do both,” Bussman said. “We can’t pay two water bills for water we won’t even be able to use.”

Bussman said the infrastructure available to pipe water in from the Arley plant would only require minor updates but some work would have to be done to pipe water in from the other systems to service more of the county.

Hanceville Water Works and Sewer Board Co-Manager Sally Alexander said the city put its well back in service last weekend and is using well water to service a third of Hanceville’s customers.

Hanceville began using the aquifer, or underground reservoir of water, in 2004 when the city stopped purchasing water from the City of Cullman. Due to drought circumstances, the amount of water in the aquifer dropped and the Hanceville City Council voted to return to Cullman City water service, signing a four-year contract.

“Right now the water level in the aquifer is 85 feet,” Alexander said. “We’ve been pulling out roughly 220 gallons a minute when it’s running, but it’s not having to run all the time.”

Alexander said the water plant is set to pull water from the aquifer when the plant’s holding tank reaches eight feet. Then, it draws water from the well to fill the tank back up to 19 feet.

“If the aquifer continues to hold its level without dropping, we’ll continue to add more customers,” she said.

Hanceville had been expected to consume 500,000 gallons of water a day from Lake Catoma.

Representatives from other Cullman-area systems, such as East Cullman and VAW (Vinemont-Antioch-West Point), said the systems have made plans to draw more water from areas they already use water from. Arab’s water system is installing a pump station to be completed in two months to get more water to East Cullman through Joppa.