MORONI—The Moroni City Council has taken steps to approve an additional loan from the Utah Drinking Water Division (DWD) to cover escalated costs of its culinary water project.
At a council meeting Thursday, Sept. 15, the council held a public hearing on a proposal to ad a net $1.22 million from DWD to its current loan for $2,485,000.
The problem, Council Fred Atkinson explained, is escalation of construction costs.
“That’s what we’re talking about tonight…the extra money we need to finish the project.”
The project includes drilling a new well, building a well house or control building, building a pipeline to carry water from the new well and an associated well to water tanks on a ridge north of the city, and a new water tank.
The original estimate for the total project was $3,535,000. The well has been completed at about $480,000, which, when subtracted from the original estimate, left $3,055,000.
But the low bid from Terry R. Brotherson Excavation of Mt. Pleasant for all the rest of the project was $4,144,018, about $1.1 million more than remaining funds.
Studies, discussions, approval and bidding on the big water project have been going on for two years. But, clearly, not everyone in Moroni has picked up on what is going on.
People at the hearing primarily wanted to understand what the project was all about and why it was necessary.
Atkinson said one of the city’s wells is too high in nitrates, a chemical that can deplete oxygen from the bodies of young babies. He said the city needs to replace the new well with a better source. The new well accomplishes that.
But even if they city could get by with the two sources it has, “it wouldn’t be enough,” he said. With population growth “we’re going to outgrow our sources in 10 years…There are just a number of things we had to do to be sustainable.”
“With the project, “we have two good-quality culinary wells, and they’re good for 20 years,” Councilman Bevan Wulfenstein said. “If we don’t do it, in a few years, we’ll be compelled to do it.”
