Town to apply for $3 million in grants
By Steve Herring
Published in News on September 14, 2016 11:57 AM
MOUNT OLIVE -- Mount Olive will apply for up to $3.2 million in Clean Water State Revolving Funds for two separate sewer projects.
The first grant is for $1.2 million and would be used to identify and repair leaking sewer lines and manholes that allow rain and groundwater into the system.
Once in the system, that water has to be treated the same as wastewater. That can place a strain on the system and is more costly as well.
The second grant is for up to $3 million and would be used for improvements at the town's wastewater treatment plant.
Town commissioners adopted resolutions at their Monday night meeting to apply for both grants.
There is no guarantee that the town will receive either grant, Mayor Ray McDonald Sr. said. But it certainly won't get them if the town does not apply, he said.
"This ($1.2 million) grant involves work on our sewer collection system -- manhole repairs, sewer line repairs -- basically smoke testing and finding and fixing any holes that exist in our sewer collection system," Town Manager Charles Brown said. "It is an effort to reduce the level of inflow and infiltration into our sewer lines.
"We will study the collection system, work to find and fix leaks in the system."
Commissioner Joe Scott asked Brown if the project is part of the town's ongoing efforts to mitigate inflow and infiltration.
"Yes sir," Brown said. "The engineer that is handling this basically laid out a plan for us. We have worked on that ourselves.
"We have done smoke testing. We have found and fixed a lot of problems with that system. But with as old as this system is, there are still many, many, many problems to be found and fixed."
The second grant would be used to address issues with the sewer plant's irrigation system including the pumps and the actual method as well.
It will also look at the feasibility of changing the trees on the plant's land application system for treated wastewater to a different crop, possibly hay.
"We are starting to lose trees down there," Brown said. "We would like to have an option in place."