The Village of South Jacksonville administration is putting inoperable fire hydrants at the top of their to-do list in the coming months.
Village President Dick Samples brought up the issue last night during the Board of Trustees’ monthly meeting as a discussion item saying that it was a matter of public safety that all of the village’s fire hydrants should be in operation and fixed as soon as possible.
Village Utility Superintendent Brian English says that he brought the issue to the board’s attention over a year ago and there is approximately 20 hydrants that currently don’t work.
English says it’s not an easy or cheap fix: “There are some that are working that we need to rebuild. They are leaking. What we are going to do is go in and rebuild them and get things going with that. I just threw out a number [on cost] tonight to the board to the total of about $10,000, and that’s if we have to do line stops with the hydrants. If we don’t have to put in a line stop, we can put in new valves and rebuild them probably around $3,000-$5,000 is what I’m guessing.”
Samples says that the village is going to do whatever needs to be done to get them fixed. He says the funding mechanism is currently the question: “We don’t know yet [on how we will pay for it]. We would like to see it come from some type of grant, but that’s probably not going to happen. We are exploring the grant situation. We may cash in a C.D. to make this work. To me, this is a number one priority to get these fire hydrants working for public safety.”
Samples told the board that he wants to get the hydrants all up and running within the next 60 days if possible.