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“Final” Alton public water meeting Nov. 4 |
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Friday, 30 October 2009 |
By ANDREW MARTIN
RICHMOND – A “final” meeting regarding a proposed public water system in Alton will be held Nov. 4 at 7 p.m. in the Alton Church.
Richmond Town Council Vice President Henry R. Oppenheimer explained that the Nov. 4 meeting will be focused on bringing in experts to help residents understand how such a water system would work.
Geoffrey Marchant of the Community Development Consortium, and Leon Millis operator of the Richmond water system, will be in attendance.
This upcoming gathering marks the end of a month full of meetings designated to inform residents about what a public water system could do for the Alton community, which features homes in Richmond and Hopkinton. Councilors from both towns are expected to attend.
The meeting is also a chance for residents to ask any final questions before the decision is made to move forward with the water system, according to Galen McGovern of the Atlantic States Rural Water and Wastewater Association.
At a previous meeting on this topic in late September, homeowners were asked to sign a petition to show their support for this project. To date, McGovern reported that 64 people have signed.
“So it’s looking like it may happen,” she said.
This meeting represents another step in a process many Alton residents have been a part of for the last seven years. Numerous homeowners collaborated in creating Alton Community Action as a means of finding a way to solve the problems plaguing their water.
The suspects of these issues are two-fold as they allegedly come from unsafe practices at Charbert Mill and risks commonly associated with shallow wells. Those risks include being vulnerable to contamination from vehicle storage and septic systems.
Members of numerous state agencies spoke on the project at the Sept. 22 meeting, which was held at the H. L. Arnold Fire and Safety Complex.
Marchant provided an estimated cost of $1.79 million for the water system with those numbers stemming from a project report compiled by C & E Engineering Partners, Inc., a Woonsocket-based firm. As stated in the report, the system would envelop parts of Church Street, Riverview Avenue, Fawn Street, Myrtle Street, and Poplar Street.
Representatives from the United States Department of Agriculture’s local rural development office have said a majority of the project could be covered by a federal grant.
They explained there is a program that could cover this project with up to 75 percent of grant money. The other 25 percent of the funds would be through a low-interest (2.5 percent), 40-year loan. There is also a $25,000 grant available to help pay for the start-up engineering costs.
But that amount of funding is only available through September 2010, when the stimulus funds allocated to the rural development office expire. As such, they said it is better to move now.
There is also money available for acquiring the land through the state Department of Environmental Management and state Water Resources Board. Both agencies showed interest in assisting in finding and buying land for the water system.
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