Pablo water district needs new water storage
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
PABLO — Officials at the Pablo Lake County Water Supply District are working against a February 2014 deadline to secure funding for a $1 million water storage project. The project is necessary to lift a connection moratorium that has prevented expansion and development in the town for the past year.
"We're hoping we don't drag our feet too much because there's a lot of free money at stake for our community," District Manager Patrick Sorrell said.
The district has secured a $600,000 loan, of which $350,000 is forgivable, but the funding is contingent on the district's ability to prove it will be able to foot the bill for the loan and an additional $400,000 the project is expected to cost.
Sorrell hopes the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Salish Kootenai College, and the Tribal Housing Authority will chip in to help pay for the project since they are the district's largest customers that want to expand their infrastructure and water usage.
For the past year there has been a moratorium on adding new water connections that are not single-family connections. The district imposed the moratorium because it had reached the maximum load for its citizens to be safe in the event of a fire; but in actuality, any electrical outage or other emergency that causes a disruption of the district's wells could create a crisis in a matter of hours, according to Sorrell.
The district has a tank that holds between 180,000 and 200,000 gallons of water.
"During a normal summer day we are pumping 500,000 gallons per day," Sorrell said. "If something happened to our wells we have less than half a day of storage in the summer. That's very scary as an operator to know we couldn't supply our town for half a day without wells."
In the winter, the town could likely survive 2.5 days on current storage, Sorrell said.
The proposed project will add a booster station and a 250,000-gallon storage tank to the district's system. The tank is built so additional storage can be added on later in 250,000-gallon increments as funding becomes available. Sorrell said the Montana Department of Environmental Quality would like the district to eventually provide 1 million gallons of water storage.
The construction's cost will be passed on to customers, although Dan Kramer of Montana Rural Water Systems was able to think of a way to minimize the impact. Montana Rural Water Systems is a state entity that works with rural water supply companies across the state.
Originally, rates were expected to increase between $12 and $15 per month for each customer. Now, the rates are projected to increase $3-$5 per month.
If the project isn't funded, progress is the price that will be paid.
Salish Kootenai College President Robert DePoe III told Congressman Steve Daines in a Dec. 6 meeting that the college would like to double the amount of on-campus housing the college has, but the water moratorium has prevented plans to do so.
"It's the city of Pablo that's really prohibiting us from expanding," he said.
The Tribal Housing Authority also has two subdivisions being planned that won't receive water connections unless storage is added, and the CSKT Tribal Complex also wants to expand, Sorrell said.
The district and tribal complex are in the process of conducting fact-finding to see if funding may be available, he added, although talks with Salish Kootenai College and Tribal Housing Authority have not yet happened.
The deadline to secure funds for the project is February, Sorrell said. The district seeks to begin construction on the project this spring.
