Reelsville Water upgrades to bring savings, consistency

The Reelsville Water Authority was recently awarded $500,000 through the federal Community Development Block Grant Program to make improvements to its drinking water system. At the award ceremony at the statehouse Tuesday, Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann (fourth from left) was joined by State Rep. Jim Baird, Dean Gambill of the Putnam County Community Foundation, Lori Young of Curry and Associates, Jimmy Proctor, Phillip Butt, Laura Fisher and Ken Egold of the Reelsville Water Authority and Kristy Jerrell of Jerrell Consulting.

For each of the approximately 900 residential customers of the Reelsville Water Authority, the recent announcement of a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant will mean real, concrete upgrades in how their water is delivered.

Changes they will even be able to see in their own yards.

The biggest piece of the upgrade plan will be new meters for each residential customer, along with new meter reading equipment and software.

"Our main focus is going to be the meters for our customers," Reelsville Water Authority representative Laura Fisher said.

Currently, not all of the meters in the system are compatible, making the meter-reading process time consuming and not necessarily at the same time every month.

Fisher said with the new meters and software, reading meters will be a one-day job, rather than the four-day job it has been in the past. The time saved will mean monetary savings as well as more consistency in meter reading dates.

"Currently, the reading might be the 18th one month and the 25th the next month," Fisher said. "You might be surprised the difference that week makes."

Besides new meters, the grant will also fund upgrades to the plant to equipment that has become outdated since the last major plant upgrade a decade ago.

Pressure reducers will also be installed in two locations to help control the water pressure for customers in those areas.

Besides simply receiving a check, local representatives traveled to the Indiana Statehouse on Tuesday, where Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann formally awarded more than $8 million in CDBG block grants to 24 Hoosier communities.

The CDBG program is administered in Indiana by the Office of Community and Rural Affairs, which Ellspermann oversees.

"These grants are supporting projects that have been identified by the local communities as important for their continued economic development and quality of life," Ellspermann said. "The funds help these communities meet the challenges of infrastructure, public safety, library and health care facility costs, while historic preservation is an important stabilizing influence on community development."

Putnam County is the lead agency on this grant, as the Reelsville Water Authority is not technically a governmental agency. However, all grant money will stay in the water authority.

Reelsville Water Authority officials have been working with Kristy Jerrell of Jerrell Consulting for more than three years to procure this grant, applying multiple times, and finally breaking through in this grant cycle.

Jerrell credited two grants totaling $12,705 from the Putnam County Community Foundation as a big reason the funding was approved this year.

"If it wasn't for the Community Foundation giving us that, we would not have been funded," Jerrell said. "That was huge."

Robert E. Curry and Associates is assisting with the project's design, which is about 80 percent complete.

Fisher said there could be movement on the project very soon, with bids coming due in a couple of weeks, and meters to be delivered in early spring.