PVIA to get $2 million OWRB ARPA grant
By DAVID SEELEY
The Poteau Daily News
Poteau Valley Improvement Authority Chairman Mick Lafevers told the PVIA board members during Tuesday night’s meeting at Poteau City Hall that PVIA was approved for a $2 million Oklahoma Water Resources Board (OWRB) American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant.
Lafevers then told the board that PVIA was approved by the United States Army Corps of Engineers that it could begin its project of clearing timber and brush for construction to begin on the clear well and backwash lagoons. PVIA Manager James Morrison said that the project will begin either at the end of this week or next week.
At the January board meeting, PVIA Engineer David Wyatt told the board that there is an issue with regard to clearing trees. The trees had to be cleared by March 31 or the tree-clearing process could not begin until the middle of November due to four varieties of bats which live in the trees and may be raising their young from early spring to the middle of fall/autumn.
During his report, Morrison said PVIA repair crews worked on a leak of a 20-inch line north of Wister, and he said that PVIA got notice Tuesday morning it got the $50,000 grant for fluoride that Morrison said would last a little more than a year.
In the November meeting, Poteau dentist Kendra Yandell addressed the PVIA board about the importance of fluoride in the water safer to use.
Morrison told the board Tuesday night that during last week’s icy weather conditions PVIA put on a generator on reserve from LeFlore County Emergency Management. He said that generator has been released back to LC Emergency Management.
Morrison said he was notified Tuesday that PVIA’s major coagulant, aluminum, is going up to $28 per ton, and that PVIA will take disinfectant byproduct samples next week. Also, PVIA will send out its water requisitions this month.
PVIA approved updating its Central National Bank account check signers, who will be Lafevers, PVIA Board Vice-Chairman Joe Mode, PVIA Treasurer Ron Pelanconi, Kevin Adams and Robert Jordan.
While not on the official agenda, PVIA legal counsel and minute-taker Dean Warren introduced Rural Water District No. 17 Chairman Vicki Cearnal, whose district serves the Big Cedar area.
Cearnal told the board that Mena, Arkansas supplies that district and several in southern LeFlore County and other areas with water, and she said the supplier plans on raising its rates from $3.30 per 1,000 gallons of water used to $5.30. Cearnal said her district is one of three of Mena’s wholesale customers. She said her district serves 172 customers, most senior citizens who won’t be able to financially handle the rate hike and make them “go back to their bad wells unfortunately.” Cearnal told the PVIA board that her district just missed out on getting ARPA funds, but thanks to a grant RWD No. 3 was able to install some in-line meters “that will help a lot.”
Warren said Cearnal told him that RWD No. 17 can’t get water from Talihina due to the lines not being big enough, and its own lines are one-, two- and four-inch lines — which Cearnal said are in severe need of work.
“We’re working with several entities to try to get (Mena) to forstall implementing those rates,” Cearnal said. “The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) is having (Mena) under requirement for rate study with those rates. Anybody who has any ideas about water in the area, I’ll certainly welcome them. We have a good operator, but she has a lot of work that needs to be done on the lines.”
Cearnal said her customers are about 26 miles from Talihina’s lines, and she mentioned talking with RWD No. 3 about being a merger there that pulls its water from Lake Carl Albert. Morrison said PVIA goes as far south as the Jim E. Hamilton Correctional Center south of Hodgen.
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