Up to $73.5 million to fund infrastructure projects in region

By GENE ZALESKI, T&D Staff Writer

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has set aside between $49.5 million and $73.5 million in its 2010-11 fiscal year budgets for local infrastructure projects.

The projects include the placement of water lines from Santee into Elloree as well as water and sewer infrastructure placement at the Matthews Industrial Park near U.S. 301 and U.S. 176.

PDF: Army Corps projects

Elloree Reach Phase I and II-Lake Marion/Moultrie will include the placement of 9.5 miles of waterline from the water tower near Interstate 95 in Santee to the town of Elloree, with a branch going to the Calhoun County line.

“We require the contractor to submit a lot of information and we have to approve a lot of details about things before they can get under way,” Lake Marion and Moultrie Project Manager Pat O’Donnell said. “We probably won’t see any construction on the ground until May.”

The $4.5 million project will be funded with stimulus monies and traditional Corps of Engineers appropriations, with the Lake Marion Regional Water Agency responsible for about 25 percent.

The project was awarded Jan. 14 to Chandler Construction Service. Completion is scheduled for November 2011.

The $1-5 million estimated cost of the Matthews/Goodby’s Industrial Park water tower project will be funded entirely with Corps of Engineers federal appropriations through the Corps Engineering and Water Development Appropriations Act. The estimated one-year project contract award date is May 19 .

The million-gallon elevated portable water storage tank has successfully passed an environmental assessment as required under the National Environmental Policy Act to evaluate the effect of proposed projects on both the environment and human health and welfare.

The evaluation found no significant effect to the environment or human health and welfare as the project moves forward.

“The water treatment plant would be the most modern treatment plant in the state,” O’Donnell said, noting the water tower would be near the Matthews Industrial Park. “It is a part of the infrastructure to attract economic development to that industrial park.”

In a related project, the wastewater treatment facility, also to be placed near the park, has also successfully passed environmental assessments.

The plant will receive wastewater from the adjacent Matthews Industrial Park, the proposed Jafza Magna-Park-Santee and expected residential development in unincorporated areas of southern Calhoun County. It is to meet some wastewater needs for the town of Elloree and Santee.

The treatment plant will use a membrane bioreactor treatment system to achieve tertiary treatment standards.

The wastewater treatment plant will be about $20-30 million and about 1.5 million gallons.

U.S. Department of Agriculture stimulus funds may be available for the construction of the wastewater plant.

O’Donnell said the Corps of Engineers would help fund a portion of the project should the USDA stimulus monies not be awarded.

The project likely will be awarded in December.

The estimated $5-10 million to place the sewer lines will be funded by the Corps. The project will entail placement of sewer-collection lines from the Jafza project along U.S. 301 to the wastewater treatment facility.

Meanwhile, the Corps has allocated about $9 million for the first phase of the 2011 Holly Hill Reach project, which is already under construction.

The project will bring the water-transmission mains from the town of Santee to Wells Crossroads (intersection of U.S. Highway 15 and Highway 176.)

About 3,000 feet of water line has already been placed from the water tower in Santee toward Holly Hill, O’Donnell said.

The project received about $11.9 million from the Lake Marion Regional Water Agency.

The project’s second phase, which will go out to contract in January 2011, will run water lines from Wells Crossroads to the Berkeley County line. The second phase, which will cost an estimated $10-15 million, will serve Holly Hill with another branch serving Harleyville in Dorchester County. The project would most likely reach completion in May 2011.

The project will be funded with about 75 percent Corps of Engineers monies and 25 percent Lake Marion Regional Water Agency.