Greene County Rural Water can pay a chunk off a chunk of debt thanks to a recently awarded Emergency Community Water Assistance Grant.
On Friday, Senator Dick Durbin announced over $25-million for water safety programs in Illinois. Greene County Rural Water Operator Charlie Rieves says his district is getting $35,840 pay off the cost of restoring two areas that were destroyed from heavy rains and flash flooding.
Rieves breaks down the project, completed in a week by Killion Construction.
“We had a total of 460 feet that we had to re-board at Macoupin Creek. We had about 200 feet that had been eroded out and needed to be reset to prevent any further erosion,” says Rieves. :
Rieves was very thankful to receive the grant.
“It was a big shock when we found out we had to replace the main under that creek. It was a big expense for us. We try to keep the rates as low as possible and that really hit our funds. It was good to get that money back in there,” says Rieves. :
As for ongoing projects, Greene County Rural Water hopes 60 miles of new water mains will attract around 100 new customers in the Walkerville and White Hall area.
Nine communities, including Palmyra, Dieterich, Mound City, Monticello, Nashville, Aroma Park are getting money to improve water and waste disposal systems that were damaged from disasters.