Pinehurst seeks grant funds for water issues

The Shoshone Board of County Commissioners (BOCC), as well as representatives from the Pinehurst Water District met with Nancy Mabile at the Shoshone County Courthouse on Tuesday to discuss how fixing the recent Pinehurst water crisis will be funded.

Mabile, representing the Panhandle Area Council (PAC) and the Idaho Department of Commerce will begin the process of writing two different grant proposals that will hopefully allow the PWD to get enough funding to go in and fix any damages that may exist within the system and upgrade the system so that the current situation doesn’t (hopefully) happen again.

Since Jan. 15, some 30 residences and businesses have been without water due to the excessively cold winter causing their pipes to freeze solid.

Last month, the PWB met with representatives from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Panhandle Area Council (PAC), The Idaho Department of Commerce, as well as the BOCC to hopefully come up with a plan to fix the problem, as well as get the BOCC to declare a state of emergency for the town.

The two grants that are being looked into are a Emergency Community Water Access Grant (ECWAG) and an imminent threat grant.

The ECWAG has the potential of being valued upwards of $500,000, but is contingent on information and with the ground still being frozen, that information is almost impossible for the PWD to get entirely.

“If we start digging now, we are going to break lines that currently aren’t broken due to the heavy frost,” PWD chairman Bruce Rumple said during that meeting.

The imminent threat grant is in a similar position because it requires evidence that the issue is an ‘act of God’ and not just the current system failing at the end of its life cycle.

Mabile is writing these grants in the coming days so that Pinehurst can begin work as soon as the money is available and when Mother Nature decides to cooperate.

For more information contact the Pinehurst Water District at (208) 682-3611