$500,000 grant approved for sewer line at store site
By Andrew Bell
Published in News on September 20, 2006 1:47 PM
The Fork Township Water District has received a $500,000 grant from the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center to assist in building sewer lines for the Wal-Mart site at the intersection of N.C. 581 and U.S. 70.
The grant, which was awarded to the sanitary district Sept. 13 during the 2006 Annual Partners Forum, will be used to build 2,000 linear feet of sewer lines, a pump station and about 13,000 linear feet of force main and pre-treatment facilities, N.C. Rural Center's programs director Julie Cubeta said.
"The grant's meant to make wastewater improvements to facilitate companies that are expanding or locate in rural areas," she said.
Engineer Tyndall Lewis of McDavid Associates said work on the sewer lines would begin in December or January. The lines should be finished by July 1, just a few months before Wal-Mart is expected to open, he added.
The Fork Sanitary District applied for the grant on Aug. 15. The grant is a part of the N.C. Economic Infrastructure Program, which targets economic development projects in rural or distressed areas of the state. Applicants are provided $10,000 per job created, up to $500,000 or up to half of the project cost if the project improves economic development in the area, Ms. Cubeta said.
Wal-Mart pledged it would create 50 full-time jobs to secure the grant for the sanitary district. The sanitary district will contribute about $1.3 million to build the sewer line. The grant will cover the remaining costs, Ms. Cubeta said.
Although the sanitary district is covering the majority of the costs, Lewis said those served by the sewer lines will actually pay a large amount of the costs through impact fees and other charges. As more businesses tie onto the sewer lines, the impact fees will help the sanitary district recoup its costs.