Compromise expected to save sewer project

By FULLER ROYAL

Things are looking favorable for the completion of a new sewer line that will transport waste from Boardman, Cerro Gordo and Fair Bluff to Fairmont’s treatment plant just across the Lumber River in Robeson County.

Columbus County’s three westernmost municipalities received millions of dollars in grants for the new sewer line.

The project hit a snag last month when regional and state officials with the North Carolina Department of Transportation denied a request by engineers Hobbs, Upchurch and Associates to allow less than mile of the line to run parallel to U.S. 74 within the state right of way.

Complicating matters was a state Department of Commerce June 30 deadline for Boardman to use or lose the funds.

Fair Bluff’s part-time manager Al Leonard said that a meeting had been set in Raleigh between the involved parties. Before that meeting could happen, DOT officials offered a different proposal that would allow engineers to bore under U.S. 74 and then run parallel to the highway on the Robeson County side of the river.

Leonard said the right of way is much wider there and includes a service road. The pipe would actually run outside of the barrier fence.

There were several houses there. A flood after one of the hurricanes damaged them and they were condemned.

Leonard said that he also made the case with Commerce Department officials to ease Boardman’s June 30 deadline.

He told them that Boardman had done all it could do and without an encroachment agreement from DOT, the town couldn’t put the project into the hands of a contractor.

“The Department of Commerce seemed very receptive to granting an extension to Boardman,” Leonard said. “The Town of Boardman and the engineers will have to write a letter requesting an extension but not until an encroachment agreement is in hand.”

Leonard said that Boardman still has to get the line to the river and then bore beneath it. These are issues that do not involve DOT.

Leonard said that some agreements might have to be worked out with some private property owners on the Columbus County side.

The project began two years ago when Boardman was awarded a Community Development Block Grant that would allow it to connect into Fairmont’s plant.

Next, Cerro Gordo received a $3 million grant from Rural Center for un-sewered communities allowing it to attach to Boardman’s line.

Next, Fair Bluff wanted to mothball its existing, aging plant and connect to the line. It received $2 million from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund to do that.