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Rural county residents are one step closer to getting city water lines run along JE Sartain Road after the Heath, Welfare and Recreation Committee at April 24 meeting approved a citizen-funder engineering study get underway and that the county enter into further negotiations with the city on the project

The committee along with Manchester Water and Sewer Commission are working with a group of rural residents to complete the project. The initial plan was for the county to purchase the six inch lines, the residents to dig trenches for the the lines and Manchester Water Department to install them. One initial snag was that the residents will be required to have the project engineered by the city engineer.

Now a push immerged at the HWR meeting that the city put a fee in place to go to the county coffers to cover the cost of the pipe and allow for additional waterline purchases in the future.

Commissioner Dwight Miller said, “If the county is going to pay for the material, and the people are going to bury the (lines) and we’re just going to turn it over to the Manchester, I think there ought to be a different compensation. Some of whatever the rate is, some of that should be built in for the county to cover that cost. Because from now on they are going to get that revenue.”

“In order for us to do this in the future to help people, we need to do it right,” he said.

Chairman of HWR, Jimmy Hollandsworth cautioned that negotiation with the city on funding the project could jeopardize the city’s willingness to provide labor.

Commissioner Morris agreed, yet then softened his approach with a motion that included approaching the city to discuss a reimbursement fee.

“I just don’t want the opportunity to slip through our hands,” Morris said. “They are drinking out of a creek and that’s not fair.”

Interim Mayor Dennis Hunt noted that the funds for waterlines would come from the little-used Rural Capital Projects Fund.

“I can see no better place to spend it that getting people potable water to their homes,” Hunt said.

At recent Manchester Water Department meetings, Manchester Mayor Marilyn Howard opposed using city labor on the project, saying that it would divert manpower from the city’s priority of fixing infiltration and inflow problems in the city sewer system that causes chronic manhole overflows