D.E. "Ed" Crowell (right), a vice president of J.R. Wauford & Co., consulting engineers in Jackson, grew up hunting on family land along Unionville Highway just northwest of the Shelbyville city limits. His family wants to develop the property with service from Bedford County Utility District. Its consulting engineer, Buddy Koonce (left), has offered the utility several alternatives on how to improve water pressure in the area. (T-G Photo by Clint Confehr) [Click to enlarge]

A Bedford County family wants to develop 126 acres on the west side of Unionville Highway just beyond Shelbyville's city line where there are jurisdictional and water pressure issues.

The situation reveals one of the growing pains here as the city utility could extend water and sewer service into the rural water district if the rural utility agrees. Without that, the developers would have to wait for the rural service to increase water pressure for fire hydrants if they want annexation and city sewer service.

"What I'd like to do is get the two boards together," D.E. "Ed" Crowell of Jackson told Bedford County Utility District's board on Thursday after speaking with directors of Shelbyville Power, Water and Sewerage 16 days earlier.

The city's utility board suggested Crowell speak with the rural utility, and when he did last week, he was told the city group ought to approach the water district board. That's according to some of the participants in the discussions including Jim Warren, chairman of the city panel.

"We will meet with them any time, any place," Warren said Friday, offering to call Marty Davis who's the acting general manager of the rural water district as it continues to search for another full-time manager. "We'll even buy dinner."

Such a summit meeting for the utilities apparently could grow from a chance meeting between Warren and Wendell Smith, one of the rural board members who reported on Thursday he'd spoken with Warren about the situation. Warren said they saw each other at a store and apparently realized their panels might benefit from a joint session.

Other beneficiaries include Crowell, his wife, Barbara, and his father, W.J. Crowell, 86, who'd probably participate in the project his son has planned since the late 1990s when he worked at a Knoxville firm where designs were drafted, Ed Crowell said Friday afternoon.

The idea is to develop the 126 acres with 70 home sites that range in size from small lots of about half to three quarters of an acre on up to 3-4 acres, said Ed Crowell. Homes there might range from 2,150 square feet to about 4,500 square feet.

Crowell grew up on the land and he stayed at his parents' home Thursday night before business meetings in Nashville on Friday and then driving back to Jackson where he's a vice president for J.R. Wauford & Co. It's a civil engineering firm that's the consulting engineer for Shelbyville's utilities. Crowell's work with the firm is confined to the Jackson office's territory, he and Warren said.

When he comes home, Crowell notices the growth, he said Thursday night.

"I drive down Bedford County roads and it shocks me," he told BCUD's board. "Where there were farm fields, there now are strip developments" of homes built facing old country roads.

The plans drafted nearly a decade ago are for a development that doesn't look like a subdivision of one boxy house after another, he said, noting there's a market for something more.

"People move down here after selling a house for $2 million and get a bargain," Crowell told the rural water board.

And so he's trying to do something with family property and in so doing, he says, "I need to open the lines of communication [between the utilities,] one way or another."

It's not like the city and BCUD officials haven't talked to each other before. There's a water pipe extending out of the city, past the Crowell property and up Unionville Highway so the rural water service could buy water from the city.

"I've already been to Shelbyville's power board," Crowell told the BCUD board. "They're willing to purchase that section of line."

Warren confirmed it on Friday when speaking of the BCUD jurisdiction, and he insisted that the city was willing to pay fair market value for it.

Here and in other counties as close as Rutherford, cities like Murfreesboro and Shelbyville do negotiate with the rural water utilities over water jurisdictions, BCUD officials noted.

Considerations north of Murfreesboro were similar to those here. Smyrna and the predecessor of Consolidated Utility District had issues over pipe size and water pressure for fire hydrants. One subdivision's residents wanted annexation. Smyrna resisted because of the cost to install bigger pipes.

The jurisdictional issue can be two-fold: the rural utility's ability to repay debt and its reluctance to relinquish territory with the prospect of customers who could help with payments; and a municipality's rating by the Insurance Services Office. The ISO helps underwriters set premiums for homeowners' policies.

Water pressure, often described as fire-flow, must be at a minimum level for fire trucks to pump water when dowsing a blaze, according to standards set for fire districts. It was an issue on the east side of Franklin where a developer installed a water tank in his subdivision to ensure fire flow.

"To be annexed for a subdivision, you have to prove you can meet fire-flow requirements for water and can get on public sewer," according to John Freeman, the water and sewer engineer at Shelbyville Power, Water and Sewerage.

Municipalities adopt an industry standard on water pressure for their fire rating. Fire flow is part of a formula that can lead to lower insurance premiums. A good fire department has been presented as a municipal service by, for example, a La Vergne mayor who once advocated annexation saying premiums would drop more than the anticipated increase in property tax bills. Water pressure wasn't the issue during the annexation debate in La Vergne, but ISO ratings were.

Here and now, Freeman noted that state law requires a certain residual pressure for water systems. He made no reference to BCUD when describing what's required. Residual pressure might be understood as what's flowing in during half-time at a football stadium when there's a rush on the facilities.

BCUD officials know about water pressure. On Thursday, they turned to Buddy Koonce, their district engineer from Highers Koonce & Associates, a Nashville firm that's also been La Vergne's consulting engineer. Koonce provided the BCUD board with three-ring binders detailing more than half a dozen alternatives on how to increase water pressure in the system. They included analysis of service in the El Bethel, Shaw and Old Nashville Dirt roads area that's generally north of the Crowell property.

Water tanks and bigger pipes were among the solutions. Discussion noted pipes are providing potable water to many residents, but there's no fire flow in parts of the system.

While reviewing part of the Koonce report, BCUD board member Randy Head noted that installing another tank isn't sufficient.

Koonce advised a new tank in Franklin County cost $850,000. In DeKalb County, a half million gallon tank cost $600,000. Both are 125 feet tall.

Meanwhile, Bedford County's government, in cooperation with the separately-chartered rural water district, helped BCUD get a $340,000 federal Community Development Block Grant to extend water service to people who have been requesting it for years.

As for solving water pressure issues, Smith asked Koonce how much the alternatives would cost.

"As much as you can afford," was the reply.

Growth issues like these aren't just here. Lebanon provides sewer service to 600 new homes where a Wilson County utility provides water, Koonce said.

Kennon Threet chaired BCUD's meeting Thursday as Marty Davis, who'd been serving as the utility's president, has become acting general manager during this latest interim period without a full-time manager. Threet cited interaction between another utility and a city.

"There's a world of areas where CUD [Consolidated Utility District in Rutherford County] provides water and Murfreesboro provides sewer," Threet said. "We plan to serve growth areas, but it's not going to be immediate.

"We're always open to talk with Shelbyville," Threet said.

And Smith sees BCUD as having an advantage in such discussions over service areas.

"We got it. They want it," he said. "They need to come to us."

Asked about that on Friday, Warren replied by reporting the chain of events with the property owner looking for utility service for his development. If BCUD releases that area, the city can take steps toward providing service.

"We're not asking for it," Warren said.

Freeman, the water and sewer engineer, said substantially the same thing.

"We haven't asked for it because it's not our decision," he said. "It's not our land to annex."

Freeman emphasized that he couldn't speak for the city utility's general manager, David Crowell who was on leave Friday, "but I don't see why he wouldn't speak with them" about water service further up Unionville Highway.

City sewer service in BCUD's water district is also possible. Black Hawk Farms south of Frank Martin Road is served that way, according to Freeman and discussion at the BCUD meeting. Water to Black Hawk Farms residents is from BCUD.

There are other examples here and between municipal utilities and rural water districts in other parts of the state.

Other alternatives exist for developments that rely on utilities and they were mentioned during the water district's meeting Thursday.

One is the prospect that developers might pay for, or help pay for improved water lines, according to Koonce.

Sharing costs for bigger pipes has been a recurring topic for the Murfreesboro Water and Sewer Board, although it's usually in conjunction with new main lines. It follows a well-accepted policy among utilities that developers install systems and then turn them over to municipalities. The same is done with roads.

Another prospect for new developments across the state is sand filtration systems, an alternate form of sewage treatment. It's sometimes called the STEP system. A Septic Tank Effluent Pump system sends treated waste water to a communal set of field lines, or even a spray irrigation system. Such systems are used in remote areas for schools beyond city sewers, the rest stops along interstate highways, and there's one that's been operating in Sewanee for decades.

BCUD's interim general manager said he'd make arrangements for a demonstration of such a system, and the board reacted positively.

Such a system wouldn't rely on a city plant such as Shelbyville's, located along Jackson Street and the Duck River.

Meanwhile, that plant has sufficient capacity to accept flow from new subdivisions around Unionville Highway, and expansion plans for the plant are being examined by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.