Church asks for help extending water, sewer lines
Freddie Charleston, representing the congregation of Nazarene of Galilee Baptist Church on Powe Road, asked the Demopolis City Council Thursday for help in extending water and sewer lines to the property.
Charleston referred to the vote taken by the previous Council last year to use $14,000 of the CARES Act funding to provide the service and asked why the work hasn’t been done.
The congregation only recently began meeting again since the pandemic shut gatherings down, he continued. The water from the church’s well is polluted and cannot be used for even mopping the floors.
Mayor Woody Collins clarified for Charleston that the Water and Sewer Board is a separate entity from the City of Demopolis, and the city has no official say-so in the board’s actions.
He also said the rules of the first CARES Act phase changed disallowing expenses for water and sewer use. Collins said the second phase of the CARES Act should allow such use, and if the city cannot use all the funds for COVID-19-related expenses, it would consider allocating some of the funds to the Water and Sewer Board for the extension of lines to the church.
“Whether the money’s there or not, we still have an issue,” Charleston told the Council. “We’re talking about a ‘right now’ problem.”
On the suggestion of the mayor, Charleston will present his request to the Water and Sewer Board at its next meeting. Collins and Councilman Charles Jones Jr., the Council’s representative on the board, will also attend.
In an effort to deter truck traffic along Walnut Street, the city has erected signs, but Mayor Collins said the signs are causing confusion.
He commended project director Mike Baker for working with the Alabama Department of Transportation to try to fix the situation by putting up the signs.
“Will it solve every problem? Probably not,” said the mayor. “But we’ve got to try.”
Councilman David McCants added that instead of telling truck drivers where they cannot go, “We need to tell them where the truck route is.”
Collins congratulated Police Chief Rex Flowers on completing 160 hours of training in the Certified Law Enforcement Executive Program, achieving Level III.
“It’s nice to get information about an employee where somebody is patting you on the back,” he said.
Collins announced the city had received the results of the latest test on water in a ditch running behind property on Ash Street. The laboratory reported E.coli contamination had dropped from 8,500 ppm to 372 ppm after upstream leakage had been found and repaired. The latest reading is considered the equivalent to rainwater.
However, Richard Fountain, owner of the property, complained that after recent rains he observed sewage floating in the ditch again.
“I’ve spent five months as mayor, every meeting, doing our very best to satisfy you,” Collins told Fountain. “All I can go by is $500 worth of tests right there.”
Councilman Jones said water running through a ditch after the rain will be cloudy and contaminated from effluent, possible from “stuff that’s overflowing.”