CULLMAN — It took this long — more than 15 years — for the Duck River Dam project to reach this point: the bond market ready to lend; a construction timeline in sight; all participants finally in accord.

In the end, it took the capitulation of the project’s biggest holdout — Cullman County — to seal the deal. And the county’s involvement came only after a separate bitter saga of its own over where its rural customers would obtain water in the future.

In mid-November, only a week after two new associate county commissioners took office, the county found itself in a position to officially reverse course from a long effort — led by a two-person majority during the previous commission administration — to develop its own source of water instead of joining with the Duck River plan, which is being developed and financed by the City of Cullman. The county instead signed on for the project, inking a long-term water purchase agreement that guarantees it will obtain drinking water under wholesale pricing throughout the lifespan of a bond the City of Cullman will issue to finance the reservoir’s construction.

Despite its public stance that it would have proceeded with the $70 million reservoir project regardless of the county’s participation, the city needed the county. The county’s water purchasing power comprises nearly 50 percent of the city’s total water wholesale revenue, with the remainder coming from the area’s independent rural water systems, as well as the city’s own customers. Having a long-term purchase commitment from a single customer with that much revenue-generating leverage will have an enormous impact on lowering the city’s bond rate, as well as the final cost through the 30-year bond repayment schedule.

The agreement was celebrated among city and county leaders with a ceremony and press conference, with officials from both governments lauding the day as a momentous culmination of nearly two decades of research, litigation and selling the idea to the public.

But a minority of critics have remained opposed to the Duck, voicing their opinions and striving to find avenues to have their interests represented before public utilities and at hearings throughout the project’s development cycle. Those voices did not subside in 2010. The county commission’s creation of a controversial water cooperative early in the year became fodder for Duck River advocates who believed the commission’s majority membership was attempting to irrevocably remove Cullman County from the Duck River conversation. Officials who serve on the board of that cooperative have maintained that they have not expressed a position on whether the Duck River reservoir should be constructed.

The Duck River plan has faced legal opposition for more than a decade due to environmental concerns, though those issues were resolved in 2009. Since that time, the city has proceeded with updating property surveys and finalizing plans for construction. All of the county’s water authorities have signed separate purchase agreements with the city to buy wholesale water for the life of the forthcoming bond’s repayment.

Current city leaders project that the new reservoir will adequately supply the area’s projected water needs for the next 50 to 75 years. That could be crucial if local industrial development recruiting lands even a single industrial tenant with a high demand for water.

With all the utility customers in place, the city is now poised to enter the bond market to secure funding. Local leaders also intend to approach the region’s congressional delegation as early as January to assay appropriated funding opportunities for a project they say will benefit a significant bloc of their district’s population for decades to come.

The project involves the construction of a 640-acre lake and a six-mile pipeline with a 32 million gallon-per-day capacity, similar to Lake Catoma, currently the area’s only water source. The new reservoir will be located east of Lake Catoma and north of U.S. Highway 278.

Construction of the dam will be carried out in three phases, with the reservoir projected to come online in 2015. Those phases, set forth in 1999 during a preliminary study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, encompass the construction of a 12-foot tunnel cut into the rock in the west abutment area, and a 1,925 foot-long and 135 foot-high rock fill dam. Engineering firm CH2M Hill has been contracted to move the project forward.



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