CULLMAN —

Cullman County commissioners Doug Williams and Wayne Willingham on Monday proposed a new plan for a second water source in the area — a plan they say will be cheaper, quicker to implement and more community involved than the City of Cullman’s preferred Duck River Dam project.

“We’ve done everything we can imagine to find the best plan,” Williams said.

Williams said he and Willingham delivered their plan to Cullman Mayor Max Townson and the city council Monday morning and would soon deliver it to the other municipalities in the county.

The proposal calls for the formation of a regional water board, upgrading the treatment facilities at Lake Catoma — currently the county’s sole water source — and construction of a new water treatment facility at Smith Lake.

The City of Cullman has proposed construction of a dam reservoir at Duck River, which would create a 640-acre lake and a six-mile pipeline with a 32 million gallon per day capacity. The reservoir would resemble the one at Lake Catoma. The project is expected to generate as many as 1,000 jobs.

To date, Commission Chairman James Graves has supported the Duck River plan, but said he was open to his fellow commissioner’s proposal.

“In that time (since the campaign), the other choice was the Tennessee River ... and it had a tremendous cost,” Graves said. “But I have an open mind. Citizens expect me to be flexible and make the best decision. I want to look at it more.”



Cost

In a community meeting last week and in previous interviews with The Cullman Times, city officials said the Duck River Dam project would cost between $60 and $63.2 million. Williams said those figures are accurate, but they include only the construction of the reservoir and not other costs, such as water treatment upgrades needed to meet with the new federal water quality guidelines slated to take effect in 2012. He said water pumped from Lake Catoma to the southern part of the county, due to the distance of travel, has a tendency to build up contaminants and would not meet the new guidelines.

“We’re having to dump water now to meet the guidelines, and that costs money,” Willingham said.

Another cost is the city’s desire to increase treated water production from the current 24 million gallons a day (mgd) to 33 mgd to meet future growth.

“During peak days, we are already at capacity,” Williams said.

The engineering firm CH2MHill, which the city hired to work on the Duck River project, has already proposed three solutions.

The first solution is to upgrade the existing plant at Lake Catoma to treat 35 mgd at a cost of $19 million. The second solution is to build a new treatment plant on Duck River for $44.5 million and the third is to construct a small, 1-5 mgd plant on Duck River and phase in upgrades to the Catoma plant over several years for an initial $28 million cost that would likely increase to a total of $98 for the entire enterprise.

Along with construction costs, Williams said the Duck River project would require purchasing a lot of property.

According to CH2MHill estimates, depending on which water treatment option the city approves, the total cost of the Duck River project could be between $80 and $158 million.

In contrast, Williams said the county’s proposal calls for the construction of a 10 mgd water treatment plant by Smith Lake at a cost of $34.5 million, the regional water board’s purchase of the Lake Catoma treatment plant and the reservoir along with upgrades for $25 million and assumption of the $5 million debt of the Cullman City Utility Board, for a total cost of $80.5 million.

Willingham said having the plant by Smith Lake, which is in the southern part of the county, would solve the treatment issues.

“Our goal has been redundancy in treatment,” Willingham said. “We are the only county of our size relying on just one treatment plant.”

The county’s figures were compiled by Birmingham engineering firm Municipal Consultants and reanalyzed by other independent firms, Williams said. Maintenance and operational costs as well as tying the Smith Lake plant onto the county’s existing water system, is included in the estimates, he added.

Also, each water system in the county would retain ownership of its transmission lines. Systems would need to agree to a carrying charge of 60 cents per 1,000 gallons, and the charge would be adjusted annually based on the Consumer Price Index.

In a previous interview, an Alabama Army Corps of Engineers representative said a study done years ago of possibly using Smith Lake as a second water source found the initial costs to be higher than that of the Duck River project.

“But the corps of engineers’ recommendation was just on the city running and having its own pipe,” Williams said. “They never considered a collaboration with the county ... using our existing piping would lower costs considerably.”



Time

CH2MHill estimates the entire Duck River project will take between seven and nine years to complete, including two years to construct the dam, three to five years to fill the reservoir with water and one year for state-required testing. Williams said those estimates mean the project would not be completed until between 2017 and 2019, which is unacceptable if the city and county want to meet the 2012 water quality deadline.

The engineering firm also estimates one year to purchase the property that will be impacted by the reservoir.

“That property has not been bought yet,” Willingham said. “And you’ve got family farms involved in that. They just say one year ... but they are going to run into some trouble.”

Williams said the county plan would take three years to complete, including one to two years to construct the treatment plant and one year to design the plant, purchase property for it, do testing and obtain a water permit from Alabama Power, which owns Smith Lake.

“We’ve been talking with Alabama Power and they’ve given us assurances they would work with the county to give us a permit,” Willingham said.

Williams said the property needed for the plant would be a relatively small amount compared to the land needed for Duck River.

“We don’t have to go across fields and take someone’s land,” he said.



Community involvement

With the Duck River plan, Willingham said the city would own everything and the rest of the county would be customers without a say in rates, which is the way it has been for decades. With a regional water board, however, every municipality in the county would have a voice, he said.

The county’s proposal would require the city’s water division to dissolve to create a regional water board comprised of all water systems. Water systems would be granted the option to serve on the board and voting would be based on percentage of use. The board would assume all water quality monitoring responsibilities.

“It’s time to bring everyone together,” Willingham said.

Currently, the county uses 47 percent of the water from Lake Catoma, but has no say in treatment or in water rates.

“Everybody deserves a seat at the table,” Willingham said. “All of us are in this together.”



Patrick McCreless can be reached by e-mail at patrickm@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131 ext. 270.