Coosa Valley Water Authority working towards grants for funds

By Michael Mee/For The Leeds News

The Coosa Valley Water Authority met Monday and gave the go-ahead to write grants that will help fund the countywide project.

The CVWA recently nominated Boyd Rowe to write the grants to obtain federal money and underwrite grants for the St. Clair Economic Development Board to help streamline the process.

If approved, the grants will supply between $2-2.5 million from the EDC and the fed. The grants will qualify for federal stimulus because they are linked to job-creating projects in the county, such as the $40 million veterans’ hospital and St. Vincent-St. Clair hospital, which will be supplied by the CVWA’s water.

Those sites are set to create 300 jobs in the area and make the case for getting federal funds to help build the Coosa pipelines, holding tanks and pumping houses.

In the coming weeks the St. Clair County Commission will have to act on giving CVWA the go-ahead for submitting the grants, since it oversees some of the water services that are linked to the project.

The commission is expected to draft a letter saying that the bonds are in place before Christmas to get things going for the project.

The CVWA is in the process of getting landowners to give the right for the water lines to be laid on property. The Coosa Valley Water lines will stretch from the Springville-Odenville tank all the way to the Embry bend of the Coosa River, where the proposed intake source will be located.

In the coming months workers will be laying 650 feet of 36-inch pipe from that intake source to the pumps, where another 170 feet of 30-inch pipe will bring the water into holding tanks.

There will be 1,750 feet of road paved near the intake site in the next few months, once money is allocated.

Construction and engineering representatives told the board on Monday evening that their crews are ready to get to work and that pre-construction talks were already taking place.

Grant writer Rose told the board that all necessary documents are in place so far to move forward with construction. “It looks to me like this thing is on the way,” he happily told the board. “I’ve spend 35 years with economic development agencies drawing up proposals and this is a good one. It will work.”