By Martha Jacob
Fayetteville Village Mayor Randy Carson and Councilman Jody Edwards called a special emergency meeting, Wednesday, Nov. 28 to discuss the continuing water line breaks throughout the village. Several boil advisories have recently been put into effect.
The meeting was held before a full council who discussed the issue at length.
Councilman Edwards said he wanted the meeting to find a solution to the ongoing problems with the old deteriorating water lines in the village particularly between Dunham Street and East Street.
“The main problem, I feel, is that we can’t regulate the water pressure when it comes into our water tower and we can’t control it when it comes out of the tower to the residents,” Mayor Carson said. “Right now, our water pressure is running about 45 psi (per square inch).”
Carson said that the village is doing exactly what has been done all along, which is basically put a bandaid on a situation that doesn’t require a bandaid.
“We’ve had to come up with quick fixes,” Carson said, “We’ve tried ways to least interrupt our services to the residents.
“With that being said, this is becoming quite problematic.”
Carson said he is concerned for residents inconvenience losing water pressure, but he feels that if the water pressure wasn’t at 70 psi, with no way to control it on the South end of town, the problem could possibly be controlled.
“The old water tower hasn’t been used for over eight months now,” Carson said. “But at the level of the water in our new tower is what regulates the pressure and we have no way of regulating that pressure.”
Councilman Edwards brought up the possibility of replacing the reducing valve or at least having it serviced to see if it could help regulate the pressure for at least a while.
“In the meantime while we watch to see if replacing that valve would make a difference,” Edwards said, “Then we look into just replacing that whole line down US 50, because Bob Campbell (former village water supervisor), told me that a few years ago he got an estimate for $30,000 to replace that section of water line.
“I’m sure the estimate would be a bit higher today, but even it it’s up to $50,000, we have to start somewhere getting these problems resolved.”
Edwards said that Kelly Cole, Brown County Economic Development Director, is currently looking for grant money to help pay for the multiple waterline replacements in the village.
Edwards offered to research the possibility of purchasing a new valve and the cost of replacing deteriorating old lines before any more major breaks happen.
Edwards also agreed to check with other villages similar to Fayetteville and find out how they paid for waterline replacement.
Mayor Carson recommended starting first at the tower and replacing the regulator before anything else was addressed by council.
“Our tower actually dictates our water pressure,” Mayor Carson said. “So if we could maintain a constant 40 psi we wouldn’t have to monitor it constantly.
“All they would have to do is just cut into the line, and it tells you when the psi reaches 40 it will automatically shuts it down.”
Carson said that the village is on a service contract with Pittsburg Tower and Tank on the tower and Randy Unger, Unger Construction out of West Union said he could get a pressure reducing valve.
Carson told council that the village water is being tested on a regular basis and the water is clean and meets all standards.
In the end, council will take immediate action to find out costs to replace waterlines, look for ways to fund the project and get quotes on fixing or replacing the meter at the tower.
Mayor Carson said, another special meeting will be called in about a week to finalize things.
