By Eloria Newell James, community@laurelleadercall.com
After more than a year and a half of work, the City of Laurel announced this week that it is about to embark upon a $11 million water and sewer line replacement project.
Dennis Keveryn, the City of Laurel’s chief administrative officer, said the city has made provisions to begin work on the water and sewer line replacement project in the next two to three months.
“We know that our water and sewer lines are old. Therefore, we’ve been working for a long time trying to get something done about a water lines,” Keveryn said. “We are getting ready for a massive water and sewer line replacement project. We are about to spend over $11,264,000 replacing water and sewer lines in the City of Laurel.”
For nearly two years, council members and city officials have been talking about the condition of the city’s water and sewer lines.
In a joint meeting of the public safety and public works committees in May 2008, city officials met with engineers with Neel-Schaffer to determine the status of the city’s current infrastructure.
At that meeting, the council agreed to allow the city administration to pursue funding options for approximately $7 million worth of improvements that were being classified as the worst problems in the city.
The group then established a proposed five-year and ten-year plan.
In March 2009, the council adopted a resolution giving the administration authority to submit a Drinking Water System Improvement Revolving Loan Fund (DWSIRLF) loan application and another resolution for Water Pollution Control Revolving Loan Fund (WPCRLF) loan application.
The Laurel City Council in October 2009 granted the administration the authority to execute the loan agreement for the Drinking Water System Improvement Revolving Loan Fund (DWSIRLF) Water Improvements Projects.
“When we need to purchase something, we look at ways to pay for it without raising taxes,” Keveryn said. “We are constantly working to try to meet the city needs without costing the taxpayers any additional money.”
Keveryn said the city has three bonds, with rates ranging from four to five percent interest, that are retiring. He said the city plans to use the money that would normally go toward those bonds for the replacement project along with $1.8 million in stimulus money and money from a State Revolving Loan to cover the cost of the project.
State Revolving Funds (SRF) are low interest loans with a payback of 20 years.
Officials said the State Revolving Loans will have a 1.75 percent interest rate for the sewer lines and a 1.95 percent interest rate for the water lines to cover the cost for the project.
“The 1.75 and 1.95 percent interest rates are good,” Keveryn said. “Because of the low rates, we can borrow the money from the State Revolving Loan Fund and get this work started this year.”
Officials said capital improvement projects are needed to improve the low pressure areas of the city, improve fire flow, create redundancy within system and provide for residential and economic growth.
Officials said although some initial projects have been selected for improvements in this plan, residents throughout the city of Laurel are expected to benefit from the proposed projects.
Keveryn said a detailed list of the lines would be released later. However, he said the entire city will benefit from the project.
“This will by no means replace all the water and sewer lines in the City of Laurel,” Keveryn said. “It will have a major/positive impact on the entire City of Laurel.”
Keveryn said the work on this project is expected to begin in late March or April.
The construction of the project is expected to take a little over a year to complete.
