DUD Awarded ARC Grant for Water Treatment Plant Project

The DeKalb Utility District has received another grant to help fund the construction of its own water treatment plant.
DUD officials Thursday morning announced the funding of the Appalachian Regional Commission grant award in the amount of $500,000. The grant was written by the Upper Cumberland Development District and will be administered by Rural Development. This grant is in addition to funding already approved for the project.
The grant will go to help fund part of the DeKalb Utility District Raw Water Intake Project. The project consists of the construction of a raw water intake, raw water transmission line, water treatment plant and finished water lines for the District.
The DeKalb Utility District has purchased land near Holmes Creek Road on which to construct the water treatment plant. The raw water intake structure will be on Center Hill Lake at Holmes Creek.
After completion of this project, the DeKalb Utility District will only need to purchase a limited amount of water from the City of Smithville, according to DUD officials. This will provide additional water storage capacity to its customers and industries in the event of an emergency. The DeKalb Utility District has approximately 5,137 customers. DUD officials said they are very pleased that this project will help serve their customers’ more efficiently.
In May, the DUD board adopted a bond resolution for the authorization and issuance of not to exceed $9-million 250-thousand dollars in aggregate principal amount of waterworks revenue refunding and improvement bonds for the water treatment plant project.
The DUD will receive a $5,000,000 loan and a grant of $1,250,000 to fund construction of the water plant. The terms of the loan are forty years at 2.75% interest. The remaining amount needed to build the $10.5 million facility will be funded through the bond issue. DUD Board Chairman Roger Turney said that the DUD is also refinancing other loans to save money. “In this loan and grant we have applied for, we’re refinancing some of the loans we already have at a savings of over $400,000 on the money that we have right now because of the historically low interest rates,” he said.
Petitions signed by opponents of the water plant project have been sent to state officials asking for a review, hoping they will find no need for the project and block the sale of bonds to help fund it.