Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Rural Water Project Becomes a Reality

Five years of hard work started to pay off in 1995 as the Gurdon Rural Water Project finally realized a future, thereby making it one of the top stories of the year.

Residents had been battling to get city water to rural areas for five years prior to '95, with project engineer Charles Summerford working without pay to get everything in order.

The paperwork started coming together and people put forth even more effort on the project. The first actual work began with area wells being tested for contaminants. Of the 45 tested, 40 had results which showed them to be bad for people.

These test results got the attention of lending agencies and helped launch the project. Meetings were held to get people to sign up for city water, with the ultimate goal to be 409.

However, with the Gurdon school district building a new high school on Highway 67, water and sewer was needed in that location. Therefore, the project plans were revised and upgraded to include 28 sewer customers required to go along with the 409 water customers.

A deadline of April 1 was set to have the customers sign up. The date came and went with the sewer segment reaching its goal but the water portion falling short.

Problems abounded when rumors started cropping up about what would and would not happen to those who signed up for city water. Gurdon's Water and Sewer Commission met to clear the air on the matter.

Some residents had been told they would be forced to cap their wells if they signed up, and would not be allowed to use them for anything. This proved to be the prevailing rumor.

Harold Hurst, commission superintendent, said this was not true. He said those signing up for city water could not have both connected to their homes at the same time. This, he explained, is done to prevent contamination from wells to the city system.

Otherwise, people were told, they could use their wells for whatever purpose they chose.

The other rumor was about the project being done because of the new school being built. Gurdon Mayor Rick Smith fielded this one and remided the citizenry the water project was in the works long before the decision was made to move the high school.

Smith said the sewer segment of the project, however, was included specifically to help the school district.

When all was said and done, though, the project fell short of the 409 customers needed by 78. However, Summerford informed all involved this didn't kill the project.

Instead, the lending agencies were contacted and the plans reworked, being scaled down to eliminate areas where no one signed up. This caused the basic rates to be raised for those who did sign up.

As Summerford said, the project must generate enough revenue to make sure the system will not operate at a loss; it must be cost effective or the Farmer's Home Administration (FmHA) wouldn't fund it.

In late April, Summerford said the project was ready to begin the next phase. The maps of where the lines would be had been updated to include all 340 who signed up, along with the 31 new sewer customers along Highway 67.

He informed the water commission, at the time, it was highly unlikely everything would be in place by August, the date the school had wanted to open by..

He also said the rates, proposed by the FmHA, would be a minimum of $14.75 per meter for the initial 1,000 gallons of water used. From there, the rate would be $2.55 for the next 4,000 gallons, and $1.40 for every 1,000 gallons used thereafter for the next 5,000 gallons.

The average household, he said, uses about 3,000 gallons of water a month.

The Gurdon School District, in early May, came to the city asking it to act as borrower for $300,000 to allow the school to begin working on getting the water and sewer lines in place.

Gurdon School Superintendent Bobby Smithson said the district had three choices: the first was to try and float a loan for the money; the next option was to wait until the project began; and the third was to attempt to get an interim loan with the city acting as borrower with the Arkansas Soil and Water Conservation Distict the lender.

Smithson said if the district attempted to get a loan to get the service in place, the FmHA would not refund the money to the district.

The school board agreed to "guarantee" the city would not be out any money by placing $300,000 aside in case the FmHA didn't refund the monies.

This money came from the $1 million the district had set aside for a new gymnasium.

With the school board securing the loan application with $300,000, the ball was now in the city's court again . However, when the city council met to discuss the issue on May 8, no one from the school board was on hand to answer questions.

Summerford told the council the money was available from the Soil and Water District, but would cost more than the $300,000 the district set aside. He said the water bond would be $146,000, with the sewer bond to be $224,300; more than $70,000 over original estimates.

Council members argued against obgligating the city for the $370,000 with nothing in writing from the school district guaranteeing the city would not be responsible to repay the debt.

As time passed, the two entities worked out an agreement wherein the district placed the $300,000 in a short-term interest bearing joint account to guarantee the city would not be out any money.

From there, the project was let for bid, after the total project was split into two phases, the first to get water and sewer to the new school, and the second to complete the parent project.