Wartrace will hold a special called meeting Monday to consider a contract with the Tullahoma Utilties Board (TUB) to furnish water to the town's customers.

The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at the town hall and will be held in conjunction with the meeting of the Wartrace Water Board.

Wartrace, which supplies water to Bell Buckle, Normandy, Haley and Beech Grove, have been in talks with TUB after the area was placed under a boil water order that lasted nearly two weeks due to a high turbidity level from the current water source at Cascade Springs.

The town's board will decide whether to get the water from TUB either as a full time source or on a part time basis. The other choice is to build a $3 million filtration plant for the current water supply at Cascade Springs, which has been mandated by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

Currently, TUB does not have a single customer that uses such an amount of water, so a new rate has been proposed for Wartrace -- $1.70 per thousand gallons. The cost would consist of three components -- the cost of wholesale water to TUB from DRUC at $1.10, a 5-cent Duck River Agency water fee, and 55 cents for a TUB water distribution fee.

The deal could also result in lower rates for Tullahoma customers.

Both TUB and the Duck River Utility Commission (DRUC) would ask their respective boards to commit to holding the price firm until July 1, 2010. The rate is not dependent upon Bell Buckle continuing to buy its water from Wartrace. The current cost for Wartrace is $2 per 1,000 gallons, and the TUB deal would result in a savings for the town. The town would also avoid having to build and staff the filtration system.

DRUC has also offered to do Wartrace's water quality testing if this option is chosen. TUB is proposing the agreement for a term of 10 years but is willing to consider a longer or shorter term.

If Wartrace wants to keep operating the spring, using the TUB connection only as a backup supply, there would be a two-part fee: A $500 per month charge for interconnection and standby availability and a charge of $3.89 per 1,000 gallons for all water up to 100,000 gallons, and $3.57 for all water above 100,000 gallons in a billing cycle. TUB is also willing to consider a third tier to the rate if Wartrace uses more than 1 million gallons in a billing cycle.