A hot button issue on social media, the lack of fire flow to hydrants in much of rural Coffee County, spilled over into the Feb. 18 Health, Welfare and Recreation meeting with commissioners regarding the legality of requiring either developers or utilities to upgrade inadequately sized rural water lines.

For years now, county officials and rural firefighters have voiced concerns about the percentage of the county that is served by inadequately sized water lines. Those lines, often only four-inch lines, do not provide the minimum flow rate at fire hydrants to fill tanker trucks. Yet the replacement of miles of water lines would be a substantial expense to the rural utilities. 

The topic of fire flow has home to a head on social media following the approval by the Coffee County Planning Commission of a preliminary plat for a 39-lot subdivision on Old Airport Road that like most of the Hillsboro Volunteer Fire Department coverage area does not have fire flow.

HWR member Tim Morris said he would like to explore the legality of forcing developers or utilities to do the upgrades.

“I think that may be something we need to look at as a full county commission,” Morris said. “To require the developer to bring the utilities up to grade even if it’s miles of it, because if you’re going to drop 40 houses in on top of somebody and there’s no fire protection there now… you’re putting a lot of volunteer men in jeopardy.”

The proposed number of lots in the Old Airport Road subdivision was reduced, and the side setbacks meet the zoning resolution requirements for areas with lack of fire flow. For the areas in the county with limited fire hydrant water flow, an estimated 50%, longstanding county zoning ordinances double the side setback from 25 ft. to 50 ft. 

Commissioner Dwight Miller said likely developers would be reluctant to run water lines beyond those that they will be installing inside the subdivision.

Commissioner Jimmy Hollandsworth said the future sale of water and additional tap sale to additional homes should be an incentive for the utility to upgrade the lines.

Morris said the county is going to have to have to take some kind of measure to upgrade rural water lines.

“We’re going to have to do something with that,” Morris said. “And that’s either with TDEC (the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation)…”

Miller said maybe a greater portion of the county’s American Recoveries Act funds, COVID relief money, should have been allocated to help utilities upgrade water lines.

Morris suggested inviting TDEC’s legal team to an HWR meeting to discuss the matter.