HOLLY POND — Holly Pond residents should begin to see the first signs of progress on long-awaited repairs and upgrades to the town’s sewer system within the next 30 days, according to Living Water President Tyler McKellar.
Monday, Aug. 5, McKellar said residents were likely to notice in the coming weeks the influx of black and yellow work vans belonging to Video Industrial marking the first step toward completing the sewer system upgrades nearly five years after Holly Pond first applied for a $680,000 pre-forgiven loan in State Revolving Funds through the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.
Due to material cost increases, McKellar said he had expressed concerns that the original submitted plan may be unfeasible with ADEM officials. He said there may be an additional $200,000-$300,000 in funding available if needed.
“They said they would be very receptive to hearing a new quote to help Holly Pond because y’all were on the first, initial list to get funding,” McKellar said.
McKellar said he has already identified and sourced several pieces of equipment for the project, but the extent to which the sewer lines themselves would need to be repaired needed to be identified before any purchases were made. He said Video Industrial would be identifying the existence of any damage by conducting widespread smoke tests throughout the town.
“I have no idea how big of a problem there is with infiltration. I know that you have it, because I can see it, but I don’t know how big of a problem it is. So, they [Video International] is going to come out first and smoke test. Once we get an idea of how bad it is, which we think it’s going to be pretty bad, we’ll know the scope [of the project],” McKellar said.
The process will involve the company blowing smoke through the main sewer line to identify areas where leaks could occur. McKellar said the non-toxic smoke would be passing through residential sewer lines, but should only be exiting from rooftop vents and not into homes — although such an incident was theoretically possible.
He said residents should be notified when and where Video Industrial would be performing the tests in advance as to not raise concern.
“It may look like the town’s on fire, I have no idea exactly what they’re going to do with the smoke that comes up. But, you’ll know about everything so all the residents will know that they’re just checking the sewer lines,” McKellar said.
McKellar said he expected to have a better understanding of where the funding could be spent by October.