- Maintenance and repainting water tower - System wide water meter replacement - ½ mile of eight-inch line connecting to Longwood Street and U.S. Highway 27 to improve volume, pressure and loop feeding the system for added fire protection - Replacing and
before the valve was replaced.
All of those prior incidents showed shortcomings in the city being able to guarantee an adequate amount of water where and when it was needed, not just for kitchens, toilets and home laundry but also for fire hydrants, sprinklers and businesses.
When City Manager Micheal Haney advised the city council of the critical need to upgrade the system or face dire consequences, he said, “We have to provide the water we’ve promised for development along the highway. It doesn’t matter how much we can pump (to the storage tank) if we can’t deliver water.”
In 2015 the council hired consultant Angela Steedley to craft a plan to both revamp the water system and at the same time secure grants to fund its implementation.
The city’s plan will provide a redundant water supply, meaning a single failure should not affect all customers, and assure a constant pressure system wide, something that is required for sprinklers and hydrants in commercial areas.
Haney said a total of slightly more than $3.42 million of loans and grants were awarded.
A $544,478 federally funded Community Development Block Grant, a $400,000 loan (repayable over 20 years at an interest rate of 1.89 percent) by the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority, a $1.1 million GEFA loan with an interest rate of 0.89 percent and that will excuse 20 percent of the principal, a $720,135 EDA grant and, now, this $465,544 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission. The city is also allocating $144,000 of its SPLOST (special purpose local option sales tax) revenue toward the project.
“Without efficient and upgraded infrastructure, industry can neither grow nor expand.” said Tim Thomas, Federal Co-Chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission. “In addition to benefiting Chickamauga’s businesses and local economy, this infrastructure improvement will make the entire floor covering industry stronger.”