Pinehurst closer to running water

The Shoshone Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) held a public forum at the Pinehurst Lions building to discuss the grant proposals that have been drawn up to help with their ongoing water crisis.

The first reports of frozen pipes came in on January 15 and since then some of the affected homes have seen the pipes have thawed out, but the majority of them remain frozen solid and with the extended winter weather, help still seems like it could be a long ways away.

The Pinehurst Water District (PWD) sought the help of the BOCC and other state and federal agencies and began the process planning and seeking out funding to repair the system.

The declaration of emergency is required for the PWD to be eligible for the grant funding available, so the BOCC has basically set up an auto-renewal process so that Pinehurst can stay in a perpetual state of emergency while the grant monies are being sought and distributed.

Nancy Mabile, representing the Panhandle Area Council (PAC) and the Idaho Department of Commerce has been in the process of writing two different grant proposals to get the city the funding it needs.

On Tuesday night the public forum was quick and easy as Mabile was able to discuss the status of the grant proposals that she had been working on.

“The customers experiencing the outages have not access to clean water for drinking,” Mabile said. “ Also they didn’t have clean water for hygiene, including handwashing and bathing and those types of activities. Because of possible contamination the DEQ determined that this was a public health threat which was how we were able to go for the imminent threat grant funds.”

Dan Remmick, an engineer with Century West Engineering was also at the forum to discuss the details of the project.

“It’s a pretty straightforward project,” Remmick said. “We will begin design work once the grant funds become available and we try to expedite that so we can get it out for bid.”

Mabile’s proposals feature a project that would open for bid in April, actual work being done in May, and have it finished by the end of June.

The grants that Mabile has written are proposals for a $100,000 imminent threat community block grant and a $150,000 Emergency Community Water Access Grant (ECWAG), The PWD has also pledged $20,000 to help with the project as well.

Both grants require specific information that has been difficult to come by due to the nature of the frozen ground, but Mabile believes that she has enough to have to proposals finished and submitted by Thursday.

“How long is going to take to get the funding? We don’t know,” Mabile said. “Once the grants proposals are submitted it would be within two weeks.”