Monterey committee considers waterline extension to Board Valley | Local News | herald-citizen.com

Consulting engineer Nathaniel Green speaks to members of the Monterey Water and Sewer Committee Monday night.

Officials in Monterey say fulfilling a request to extend waterlines to a handful of homes in the Board Valley community near the Putnam-White County line will be difficult given the cost of the project.

"It's going to be rough," said the town's consulting engineer, Nathaniel Green. "We drove out, looked at both sides of the road. From Sheep's Bluff [Road] where it makes the turn to go toward Board Valley, there's a four-inch line that runs maybe a thousand feet or so and then it ends. So in order to get to the [new homes], it would be about a mile of line to lay."

Green said the cost of running such a line is expensive.

"It's probably every bit of $100 a foot to get it laid," he said. "It's not impossible. Just expensive. If we were going to do it, you'd have to at least extend the four-inch line a certain distance. They're a considerable distance below your water storage tank, so we'd end up having to have a pressure reducing valve put in, and state design criteria says you can only run about 3,000 feet of a two-inch line."

He said construction on such a project could range from $100,000 to $500,000.

"You're ... not making that much off of those five customers," he said. "I'm not saying that's the only thing you should look, but that's definitely a factor."

Mayor Alex Garcia said, "If they wanted to pay for it, I wouldn't have a problem with it. They'd have to fund it [because] we're not putting in a dime. That's my opinion. I think we take it to the board and let the board decide. And that way, if they come to the meeting, we've got an answer for them."

The town's Water and Sewer Committee voted to do just that.

The committee was also updated on delays with the waterlines out to the proposed future location of Stephens Seed and Supply on Highway 70. Green said health issues have prevented the contractor from completing the project within the required time period.

"They're outside of contract time at this point," he said. "I think you're well within your right to take it away from him and try to do something else if that was something you want to look at doing. We're kind of getting to the point where we need to buckle up and get it done."

Garcia noted that rebidding the project would involve additional expense, so he suggested holding off on changing contractors for the time being.

The committee was scheduled to discuss a potential lawsuit against the city by the environmental group Riverkeeper, but Garcia said such a discussion was not yet necessary.

"The attorney's got it so it's in his hands for now," Garcia said.

Riverkeeper announced last month that it planned to file suit against Monterey within the next 60 days for alleged overflows from the town's wastewater treatment plant.