District sewer work still on hold

The Jay County Regional Sewer District continues to play the waiting game as its three sewer installation projects are once again stalled while the board waits on state approval for its funding.
“All we’ve got to do tonight is an update,” said board president Gerald Kirby as he opened the meeting Monday evening.
“I don’t want to call it foot dragging, but things are a little bit slow on the (United States Department of Agriculture) Rural Development side,” said Ben Adams of Commonwealth Engineers.
That update wasn’t unusual for the board to hear of the project, which has been oft-delayed. The district will install sewers in three locations: The Foxfire Drive and Ind. 67 area southwest of Portland; the Skeen Addition north of Dunkirk; and the Willow Drive and Arlington Avenue area south of Dunkirk.
During the initial planning stage, the sewer district’s funding request was delayed for four months before the group was awarded a $1.2 million financial package from the state in April.
After the financial package was announced, the board was delayed while the state reviewed engineering plans before green-lighting bids in August.
And after opening bids in September, the board is still waiting to close on its financial package due to issues with obtaining sewage treatment agreements, easements and other information required by the state office.
“I’ve set up a weekly conference call,” Adams said, comprised of himself, Kirby, the district’s bond counsel, the district’s financial firm, and Rural Development. “I’ve been trying to take them to task.”
Although the district is still trying to obtain six easement agreements from property owners in the Foxfire Addition area (the board has already secured 18 easements), Adams said at this point there is “nothing left to do.”
Adams said one major component of the slowdown is that the Rural Development director for Indiana recently retired and that the interim does not have the authority to make final decisions on these types of projects.
Adams said the district’s requests have to be forwarded to the Muncie office, which forwards it to Indianapolis, which forwards it to Columbus, Ohio for approval. Once it gets approval, the documents have to come back down that ladder to the district board.
Despite bids for the project being opened in September, Adams said that Tumbusch Construction, St. Henry, Ohio, and CSU Inc., Plainfield, have agreed to honor their bid amounts on the Foxfire and Skeens projects, respectively.
Adams said he has been unable to contact Watson Excavating Inc., Redkey, about the Willow Drive project.
“Two of the three contractors … they’re both willing to hold their bids,” Adams said. “They’re both willing to do the work.”
Adams said that the earliest the board could expect to close on its grant/loan package from the state would be another 30 days but that was only “the latest and greatest best guess.”
“We’re at the mercy of RD,” he said.
In October, the board expected to begin construction in mid-December. Now, at the earliest, it seems construction may not start until mid-March.
“I wanted to have this thing in the ground by now,” Kirby said.[[In-content Ad]]