Adams County sewer board discusses payments to help Wells County sewer board

What to charge Wells County’s rural sewer board for having Adams County’s sewer board assist in Wells County was discussed at the Adams County board’s March meeting.

Adams County has had a sewer system longer than Wells County has and is much more advanced, so Wells County has sought assistance here, first for monthly billing, but, in the future, for repairs, maintenance, or other problems.

The Adams system has three fulltime workers (two in the field, one in the office) and a part-time recordkeeper, while Wells County has just a superintendent, although it is trying to hire at least one parttime person to perform field work.

Nate Rumschlag, the Adams County engineer who was Wells County’s engineer and is also on the Adams sewer board, said of Wells County’s officials: “They’ve got some things to hammer out.” He also said Wells officials are quite conservative with public funds and “want to be very lean” on personnel.

Adams County Attorney Mark Burry, the legal counsel for the sewer board, noted that while Wells County did provide $2 million from the American Rescue Plan Act to get the first part of the sewer system extended to the Craigville area, that county did not provide any additional money for other operations, as Adams County did.

Burry said Adams County’s leaders offered in the first year of the sewer system here, 2014 or 2015, to give $60,000 per year to get things underway and that was a very big boost, he added.

Now that Wells County is asking Adams County to provide assistance there for maintenance or problems, the Adams board discussed having Wells pay timeand-a-half per hour for work done there during regular weekday hours and double-pay for work on weekends and after regular working time in Adams County on weekdays.

Burry said he will write an interlocal agreement about that pay setup for a vote at the April meeting. He referred to the proposed payments as a “reasonable level” for the work. Progress reports Nate Scherer, the district superintendent, said there are eight more homes to connect to the system in the Sunnybrook Addition, with one homeowner being uncooperative, so he will turn that over to the county health department to settle.

Scherer also said the lift station at Magley is hooked up and the next step is for Indiana Michigan Power to provide electrical connections.

The force main will be connected at Preble soon, with a control panel installed at the lift station.

On Winchester Rd., five or six more homes have been linked to the system and pressure testing has begun on the line in the Clem’s Lake South area and on CR700N.

Scherer said additional work is underway along CR300E up to CR600N and on 600N back toward Decatur.

In addition, grinders will be put in place soon along US 224, though he said Fleming Excavating of Decatur plans to do as much work as possible in the hours after school starts and the regular workday begins because of less potential for traffic disruption then.

The superintendent said he would notify the REV motor home company and North Adams Community Schools about the timing of the work along 224.

Overall, he stated, “progress is moving pretty well out there.”

Finally, he said he talked with the seven homeowners along CR100W near Decatur about their hookups to the system and was pleased that four of them were “ecstatic” about it.

BILLS PAID

There were unanimous votes to pay these amounts:

• Payroll of $8,447.89

• Regular monthly bills totaling $260,634.22

• $39,298 to Commonwealth Engineers of Fort Wayne for work on Project Five

• $508,795 to Fleming Excavating for work on Project Five.

• $206,777 to Underground Contractors of New Haven for work on Project Five.

Project Five includes Magley, Winchester Rd., Clem’s Lake South, and CR900N.