Council combines hydrant projects

At their monthly Tuesday morning workshop and in anticipation of the advent of spring, Pine Haven’s council discussed the planned installation of new waterline needed to complete a system loop through Boe Drive as well as the hydrants that will be added as part of the project.

They also addressed the issue of the approximately ten replacement hydrants to be installed in the C-Bar Subdivision. Mayor Karla Brandenburg opined, “They have asked when we were going to get the fire hydrants. If it isn’t going to cost us any more, I’m thinking we need to do it.”

Cost, though, is a problem, according to HDR Engineering’s Heath Turbiville, who said, “I know the fire hydrants within C-Bar are important to get done, [but] it’s not really efficient to do that as a separate project because it’s a small project…It will cost more because we would probably go through a separate DEQ permit, a separate bidding and the contractor cost would go up because it’s such a small project.”

The engineer asked the group about putting the two together, creating a project large enough to be considered worth the time of bidding contractors.

The mayor expressed her willingness to bind the two projects together, making an appreciably larger job: “Our chances of getting it done this summer are probably about the same [for either project] so doing them together might be wise. Bid it out all together and we’ll hopefully get it done. We’ll just let them know that we’ll try to get it done by the end of this summer if the weather cooperates.”

While the town has not yet received the money, Pine Haven has been approved for ARPA funding for almost $1.1 million and Turbiville assured the governing body that if they move forward on the hydrant projects before the funds arrive, the coffers will be reimbursed.

This endeavor was later approved at the regular meeting of the council.