SUMMERDALE - The Summerdale town council is moving forward on making major improvements to the town’s water system. Improvements include the laying of new waterpipe in select areas, upgrading town meters and the installation of a new elevated water tank. With the water system improvements, the council plans a water rate increase to occur in March 2022.

“This is just a water rate increase announcement,” said Mayor David Wilson. “The town of Summerdale is getting ready to investigate the location of a new well, a new elevated tank, and we’re doing major waterline improvements. It’s been since 2016 that we had any type of an increase, and these will go into effect starting next March. We had a lot of discussion on the amount, and it will be a total increase of $2 over a 4-year period of time on the minimum cost of your water bill, which the minimum is $20. That’s just an announcement, it won’t go into effect until next March if it’s approved at that time.”

The town is planning to purchase upgraded meters to be installed in the near future. Currently, council is comparing prices of drive-by meters and automatic meters. Drive-by meters require employees of the town’s public works department to drive past where the meters are placed in order to read the meters. Automatic meter reading systems are a higher cost, but would allow for readings to upload directly to town hall.

Either route taken, the council plans to apply for SRF, state revolving funds sponsored by ADEM, to purchase and install the new meters.

“Say, for example, you want to do a million-dollar project, you are eligible for up to $500,000 in principal forgiveness, and the remaining $500,000 is placed on a 20-year loan with the option to pay it off after 10 years at 2.2 percent interest,” said Alan Killen, engineer with Civil Southeast.

The first application for the SRF program is due Feb. 1, 2022, and the town should know whether or not the project qualifies for the principal forgiveness by May 2022.

“It is a loan. It is not a grant, it is a loan, which you could potentially get free money with,” Killen said. “They select a certain number of projects and give them up to 50 percent principal forgiveness on their loan … You will submit a pre-application, most likely you get prequalified, but they’re going to tell you before you ever sign any loan documents whether or not you’re going to get this money. If you don’t get the money, you can walk away. They’ll tell you if you’re going to get the principal forgiveness.”

More information on the different types of meters will be given to the council during a future meeting. No fees are due on a submission of an SRF application unless the town chooses to move forward with the project.