The Dekalb Utility District board met in special session Thursday to consider a resolution for the authorization and issuance of $9.25 million in aggregate principal to construct a new water treatment plant.
While many opponents of the proposed facility crowded into a small meeting room and hallway Thursday afternoon, many of them speaking out against the board's decision to build the plant, the funds were approved by the board by a vote of 4-1, with Hugh Washer casting the lone dissenting vote.
Chairman Roger Turney, Joe Foutch, Danny Bass, and Jimmy Womack all voted in favor of accepting the funds.
After Turney took comments and questions from the audience for nearly two hours, many of them opining that the new plant is redundant and that it will cause rate increases for subscribers he attempted to answer the inquiries and put fears about the new plant to rest.
After the votes were cast, several residents left the meeting in anger.
Among the dissenters to the project was John Daniels, who asked why the DUD board felt the need for a second water plant in DeKalb County.
"How many times has the water ever been down in Smithville?" he asked. "I've lived here for 34 years. I've never seen us without water, ever. Most other places don't have redundancy (more than one water plant) either. It seems foolish to me to have two systems with one of them only running at 45 percent," said Daniels.
Some residents came to raise issues other than the proposed plant.
Dwayne Cantrell suggested that the utility fix water pressure problems in the existing system before taking on a new project.
Cantrell said he and many of his neighbors have had to install water pumps under their homes due to the lack of pressure in DUD lines which are too small.
 "I shouldn't have to have a $400 water pump under my house in order to take a shower," he said.
Robert Kirkham, a Silver Point resident, said the DUD should try to get a water line across Hurricane Bridge so customers in his community could get cheaper water rates.
"Cookeville sells to Baxter, Baxter sells to DUD, and DUD sells to us,” Kirkham said. “By that time, it’s pretty expensive. Why not take this opportunity to put water across the bridge as they are refurbishing Hurricane Bridge and relieve us of triple taxation for water we get. We also have almost no fire hydrants anywhere in our area," he added.
Tommy Curtis of Hurricane Ridge Road called for a referendum on the new plant.
"Why can't we have a referendum to let the voters on the water system now cast a vote as to whether we want this done and let some independent group count the ballots?” he asked. “You're not giving us any choice and we're the ones who are going to have to pay the bill.”
Jerry Adcock, county commissioner from the 5th District, said he would like to see changes in the law to require DUD board members to be elected.
Board members are now appointed by their county commissions, and Adcock told the assembly that he did not approve of the way names of possible appointees  are submitted by the DUD itself to the county commissions for consideration.
Charlie Rush suggested that DUD keep buying its water supply from the City of Smithville.
"You have a perfectly good water plant on the other side of town, operating at 50 percent  capacity. What in God's name do we need to be wasting money to build another one and bankrupting the first on?" Rush inquired.
Randy Rhody said DUD customers should have been made more aware of the proposal and more public input should have been sought.
"A lot of the problem is poor communication," Rhody said. “We've had no public forum. We've not been involved in any of the decision making on it. A lot of this is causing a lot of bad will between the city and the county. That's unfortunate. We need to all get along and work together. We've had no problem in getting water. To me, if you vote yes, then you're thrusting higher costs on all the residents of the DUD and you'll be remembered for this mismanagement. I think it's a mistake and I think most people think it's a mistake. We've not been involved in the process. Had we all been sold on this, we would be behind you. That hasn't happened. It seems the decision has been made in a closet and people haven't been informed and don't know. All the things I've heard so far sounds like this is not needed," Rhody concluded.
Robbie Taylor told the board that they should consider people on fixed incomes who can't afford higher water bills.
"DeKalb County doesn't have a lot of rich people," she said. "A lot of people are on fixed incomes. We've got a lot of elderly people and our income don't go up much. I've always heard if anything is not broke, don't fix it. I don't see anything is broke. I think we should leave it like it is.”
In Turney’s responses to the questions posed, he said that the project was not an overnight decision, and blamed a media campaign authorized by the City of Smithville for spreading misinformation about the DUD's plans.
“This is not a new idea. We have been discussing the possibility of a water treatment plant for 10 years. I'll be honest with you. Most of the group here today is because of a vast majority of misinformation that was handed out at the behest of the City of Smithville. A lot of the information has been drastically misunderstood and misrepresented. Obviously, there's been a lot of money spent sending out calls, newspaper ads, and letters to all the customers, which is fine. But a lot of the information was not correct," Turney said.
"Our major concern is DUD customers,” he continued “We buy our water from Smithville. Every year that water rate goes up because the rate from Smithville goes up every year. Our contract runs out in 18 months. We looked to the future. We had our auditors and several other people look at the possibility of continuing to buy water from Smithville or produce our own water. In the long run all the projections come back that our water rates will go down or not go up as much because we will have the capacity to control our own expense and not have to depend on Smithville," said Turney.
On the matter of water pressure in the Jenkins Hill and Dismal communities, DUD Manager Jon Foutch said the utility is applying for a CDBG grant which would address water pressure problems in some areas.
"If we were to get the grant, it would be for that area around Dismal to build a water tank. Being that much higher, we have customers like you in mind and also at Jenkins Hill where they have low pressure and that would take care of that problem," said Foutch.
On the subject of the high rates that Silver Point residents pay, Turney said:
"We are concerned about the water bills of customers at Silver Point. We have looked at every possible way to handle that. The problem is it was over $500,000 to put that pipe on that bridge. No water line, just the pipe. We have no water line to it and no water line on the other side of it.
“If we had gone through the whole process of hooking that up, putting the pipe across the bridge and putting in the water line, the whole bit, probably everybody's bill, the whole district would have had to have been doubled just so that you all could have a cheaper rate.
“That's unfortunate that your rate is higher but we can't get grants for this because it doesn't serve new customers, it’s existing customers. You can't get grants for existing customers. You get grants for new customers.
“My hope is that eventually, if we can get to the point where we can control more of our own money, we may be able to do something like that, but right now we can't.”
He went on to say that high rates are better than no water at all.
“If Baxter had not been willing to let you (Silver Point residents) have water, you probably wouldn't have any water at all today. Is it better to have a high water bill with water, or no water bill and no water?" Turney asked.
While some in attendance suggested that the goal in building the new plant is to expand its service area into Rutherford County, Turney denied the rumor, saying that the utility simply wants control of its own destiny.
"There's been talk of selling water to Rutherford County,” Turney said. “That's my fault. I mentioned at our last meeting of possibilities of places that could use water. I mentioned Rutherford County. We haven't talked to Rutherford County and they haven't talked to us. Again, that's being blown out of proportion to try to get people stirred up.
”We have no intent of selling to Rutherford County.
“Now, if someday they would like to tie into us, that would be a cash cow. That would give us income that would lower everybody's bill. But we're not even looking to do that. What we're trying to do is make the rates for DUD customers as reasonable as possible, to provide water and keep it down as best we can," said Turney.
Turney also told the assembly that DUD water rates, while increasing 7 percent each year over the next three years, will actually stabilize, if not eventually decrease, with this new plant.
"We had to project to the state what our rate increases would be in order to pay for this grant, loan, and this water treatment plant,” he said. “Our board passed a 7 percent rate increase for this year, 7 percent next year, and 7 percent the third year with the stipulation that the third year that 7 percent increase may not be that much.
“Let's talk about what that really means, he continued. “Our minimum bill right now is $17.50. At the end of that three years, the minimum bill will go up $4.20. That's the price of 1.2 gallons of gas today. That's not going to break anybody. I don't want anybody's water rate to go up but that's a small price to pay. We figure that our average customer uses about 6,000 gallons. Their water bill now is around $44. At the end of the three-year period, their water bill will go up $10.50."
Turney said that he believes that having two water plants in the county would be better than one, especially in the event of a catastrophe.
"What if something happens, and it did happen sometime ago. A flood came and Smithville was short of water for a while,” Turney said. “Thank goodness it wasn't a disaster. It could have been. What happens if that plant goes down? Where do you get your water? There's no other place. With two treatment plants, we can benefit Smithville and they can benefit us and I firmly believe that in the long run not only will DUD customers be happy that we did this, but the City of Smithville will be happy we did it. We can help each other," Turney concluded.
The DUD will receive a $5 million loan and a grant of $1.25 million to fund construction of the new water plant.
The terms of the loan are 40 years at 2.75 percent interest. The remaining $4.25 million needed to build the $10.5 million facility will be funded through a bond issue.
Turney said that the DUD is also refinancing other loans to save money.
"In this loan and grant we have applied for, we're refinancing some of the loans we already have at a savings of over $400,000 on the money that we have right now because of the historically low interest rates. The time is right. Everything that we've looked at says this is the time to do it," he said.