Wartrace water grant approved

The town of Wartrace got some long-awaited and much desired news Monday afternoon. The Rural Development grant needed for the water connection to the Tullahoma Utilities Board was approved.

"I got a call about two hours ago," said Mayor Don Gallagher at the Monday night meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen.

He told the board the town was awarded the grant for $425,000.

"What that means is we can make this connection to Tullahoma and it won't cost us anything," said Gallagher. "It's not just good news for our customers, but means we can offer very good rates to Bell Buckle."

The money would go toward the engineering, legal, and other fees for the project, he said. The town would face other construction costs in other phases of the project.

With that in mind, the board approved a resolution giving Gallagher permission to apply for a Community Block Development Grant of $500,000 to help fund water lines along portions of Red Hill Road, Lazy Branch Road, Cleveland Road and Union Ridge Road, with the balance in local matching contributions coming from other sources.

The board also had to approve two resolutions granting bids for work to be done on the Wartrace-TUB connection. The new resolutions replaced an earlier resolution because of changes the RD grant made in funding the projects.

The first of the new resolutions awarded Clanton Paving of Shelbyville, the low bidder of seven with $355,250 for the waterline connection. The second bid also went to Clanton and it was for the waterline project to George Dickel at $131,950 and an additive alternate bid, subject to available funds, of $172,250 for the Lee and Haley Road waterlines.