By Katie Northcott, News Director
During a tense exchange at the Manchester Water and Sewer Commission (WSC) meeting on Thursday, April 9, Manchester Mayor Joey Hobbs said that the city would not help fund a 6-inch water line for a water and sewer project on county land.
County Commissioner Tim Morris (District 5) presented the project to the WSC. He said that several residents on J. E. Sartain Road were without city water and were using creek water for tasks like flushing toilets. He asked the WSC if the city could help the county fund a project to run water lines to the residences.
“Coffee County has $36,000 to bring to the table to help put water in for them. I’ve gone through a whole lot of my … political clout to get to this point,” Morris said. “And I bring this to you just like I did to [the County Commission], begging you to help these people because they have no water source. Their spring has gone dry.”
Morris said the $36,000 could pay for a 4-inch water line if the city would take on the cost of installing the water line.
Morris said he had not been able to garner enough votes from the County Commission to fund the purchase of a 6-inch water line, which would cost around $60,000. He said he had been unable to secure state or federal grants since the city provides water and sewer services, not the county and that the city would eventually recoup its investment through water and sewer billing.
Hobbs said that he would not support the project unless the county paid for a 6-inch water line and that the county should use its rural infrastructure fund for the project. He said that it would take the city about 50 years to recoup its investment if it helped fund the project.
“I can’t allocate city funds when I have my own infrastructure problems,” Hobbs said. “We’re going to have to do 6-inch because was what suggested to us so that we don’t have to go back and fix it at some point.”
The City of Manchester recently made a $29,200 payment on a nearly $150,000 fine leveled by the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation (TDEC). The fine was leveled due to sewer infrastructure issues. The rest of the fine will be waived if the city can meet deadlines instituted by TDEC.
Find more reporting on the payment to TDEC here.
Manchester Vice Mayor Mark Messick and Alderman Thomas Crosslin, who sit on the WSC, agreed with Hobbs.
“I respect everything you just said about what these people are having to go through,” Crosslin said. “They’re your constituents. You have $4 million sitting in a rural infrastructure fund, and you’re coming to us over $30,000.”
Hobbs, Messick, and Crosslin referenced a $4 million grant the county had been given for rural infrastructure. Morris said the grant would need to be put toward a new school building.
“We’ve been trying to get this done for three years, and it’s always been thirty or forty thousand dollars that stood between us and doing this. Have you been broke every year for three years?” Messick said. “Could you not come up with ten, fifteen, twenty thousand dollars?”
Ken McMahan, a resident of J. E. Sartain Road, eventually volunteered to pay for about 2,500 feet of pipe if the city would guarantee him an amount of free taps equal in value to the amount he spent on buying the sewer lines.
Hobbs said the city would give McMahan “a couple” free sewer taps.
“I hate that you’ve got to spend that kind of money, but we’ll help you all that we can,” Hobbs said.
