CULLMAN — During the public comment portion of the Aug. 19 meeting of the Cullman County Commission, Holly Pond Mayor Herman Nail approached commissioners with a letter. The letter asked the commission not to wait any longer to tap into a water source that, Nail argued, the county’s east side could benefit from in the near term, without the delay that would attend the ongoing struggle to begin a reservoir construction project.

That source, a test well the county water department has drilled to assay water volumes and quality in Blount County, could be tapped soon to help supplement an existing water supply that, according to some poultry farmers on the east side, is rising in price and declining in quality.

“This is the first time in 20 years it’s cost me money to grow chickens,” said Holly Pond farmer Terry Carr Friday. “Our chickens haven’t performed like they should. The thing about it is, I’m still doing everything I’ve done—to the tee—for the last 20 years, and the only variable, really, that’s outside my control is the water. I’m not the only one out this way who’s having the same problem at the same time.”

Carr explained that four variables—temperature, air, water and litter—are most important in raising poultry and readying it for market. Of those factors, he said, only water seems to be a common thread shared between himself and other east side farmers whose chickens are suffering the same fate.

“You can pretty well rule the litter out, and the other factors, because those things are pretty well a constant. The water—I don’t know, because we have no control over that. I can’t say for certain that the water is of this or that quality, but it’s the only variable we can’t control, and something has got to be having an effect.”

Carr has four chicken houses at Holly Pond. Sam Pinyan, a nearby friend of Carr’s, has eight. Both he and Carr say the DBPs and the increase in the price of water has driven down their profit margins to the point that staying in business, if something doesn’t change, can’t be taken for granted.

“It’s all a concern right now,” said Pinyan Friday. “The cost is a big concern, because we’re not getting any bigger a return on what we produce, but the costs keep going up and up. [And] I’m not sure that the quality of the water that we’ve been getting is what it has been in the past.

“I don’t know who you point the finger at, in terms of city or county... but I spend an average of $5,000 each month for water; my broiler houses, per house, are drinking an average of about 2,500 gallons a day. Multiply that times eight. So it’s an expense; it’s something that we’re paying for, and it’s something we can’t control—we have to take it like we get it. I’m 100 percent dependent upon city or county water.”

Like other local water systems, Holly Pond is buying county water that starts out as city water. Cullman County is contractually obligated until 2030 to buy all its water from the City of Cullman. Because the county has no treatment plant of its own, however, all the water the county resells must first be treated at the city’s plant on U.S. Highway 278 in East Cullman. All the water it treats originates at the city’s reservoir at Lake Catoma.

Because lake-sourced water must be cleansed of its organic contaminants, treated water in the outlying supply lines can contain minuscule traces of chemical detergent artifacts—called disinfecting byproducts or DBPs—that become more problematic for the systems lying at the extremity of the Highway 278 central treatment facility. In other words, thanks to some complex chemistry, the level of DBPs in already-treated water gets higher—in some scenarios, unacceptably high—the further away from the treatment facility it has to travel.

Nail, who is in the process of doing some in-house tests at Holly Pond’s waste water treatment plant to determine whether the pH levels of his town’s water has recently changed, says he doesn’t have the equipment to test for the presence of DBPs. Too, he knows the timing of his request may lack fortuity. But, he adds, his town can’t wait any longer.

“We’re 11 miles from the [city] treatment plant, right here where we sit at town hall,” Nail observed at Holly Pond Friday. “What we’re recommending doing—it would be something we could start right now; we’ve looked into the cost; and, if the county can agree to do it, it would give everyone on this side a backup source of water if things get to an emergency drought level like they were in 2007.”

The farmers say they want to stick to farming and leave the politics and policies to those whom they’ve elected to serve their interests.

“I have to worry about my chickens,” said Carr. “I have to live and die by what we’re getting from the water system, but our job keeps us here. I hope they can figure it out, because [water] is more a commodity for us than it is for somebody paying a water bill on their house—it’s a cost of doing business. If it’s lacking in some way—if it’s got too much level of something in it; if the cost rises above a certain amount—it doesn’t take long to feel that where we make a living.”

Nail said that’s exactly why he’s taken up the issue—he has to think about the people he serves as mayor.

“It’s understandable that the City [of Cullman] and the county commission are going to look out for their interests,” he reasoned. “I understand that and I don’t begrudge anybody from doing that; it’s their job. But I have to do that too. I have to look out for the interests of people at Holly Pond first.”



‰Benjamin Bullard can be reached by e-mail at bbullard@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131 ext. 270.