Pictured above are three of the six sludge drying beds at the Haleyville Water Works and Sewer Board’s main wastewater treatment plant. These beds would be rehabilitated and two more would be built in the grassy area to the right if one project on HWWSB’s wish list of funding needs, which was recently sent to ADEM, are approved.
HALEYVILLE - The Haleyville Water Works and Sewer Board has informed the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) of four more projects that it would like to undertake in the future. That was one of two items of business at the board’s monthly meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 22.
The meeting was held earlier than usual, at 5 p.m., due to the threat of severe weather later in the evening. All members of the council were present, though Ralph Trallo attended via speakerphone.
Mayor Ken Sunseri called the meeting to order and thanked the board for meeting early.
In the first item of business, WWSB General Manager Lane Bates presented the January financial statements. The total revenue for water was $232,819.87, almost all of which came from customers’ water payments, while expenses totaled $208,081.56, leaving a net income of $24,738.31.
Bates pointed out that the water revenue for January came primarily from what customers paid for the water they had used in the November-December billing period, while the board’s largest water expense, the cost of water from the Upper Bear Creek Water Authority, was for water the board received in January.
He noted that while it was warm in the November-December period, it was very cold in January, resulting in people using more water that month by leaving their faucets running. “That’s the reason (the January) bill (from Upper Bear Creek) is kind of elevated a little bit,” Bates said, adding that customers’ payments for water used in January will come in later.
Bates then reported on the sewer financial statements. Revenue from sewer payments was $43,531.87, while expenses totaled $105,626.87, leaving the board with a loss of $62,095. It is normal for the board to lose money on the sewer side of its operations.
The board voted unanimously to approve the financial statements.
Sunseri then informed the board that ADEM, knowing it will be receiving a large amount of funding to disperse sometime in the future, asked local utilities to submit a “wishlist,” as he and Bates later described it, of all the projects that they would undertake if they could, so as to give ADEM a sense of funding needs across the state.
Sunseri said that Haleyville WWSB submitted four new projects to ADEM in response.
Bates explained the projects to the board. The first project would include building two new sludge drying beds as well as rehabilitating the six existing beds at the main wastewater treatment plant on 1st Avenue. Sludge drying beds allow sludge from the sewer to be dried into a solid waste that can then be collected and transported to a landfill.
See complete story in the Northwest Alabamian.
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