Approximately 150 people turned out for meeting last week about a possible locations for a new county reservoir, but officials made little headway in gaining access to the sites.
The Jackson County Water and Sewerage Authority hosted a three-hour drop-in event at the Jefferson Civic Center. The purposes were to provide information about the Nicholson area sites in the running for a new county reservoir — and to talk people into letting surveyors onto the property.
The first goal was fulfilled. Not the second.
County still lacks access to reservoir sites
“We did no better on site access from our original results,” noted in-house engineer Fred Alke.
The authority already had permission from 42 percent of the property owners.
What’s next?
The authority could go to court to get access.
The largest of the three sites is along Little Curry Creek west of Nicholson inside of Brockton Loop and backing up to Brockton Road.
The other two are east of Nicholson. One is between Quail Ridge Drive on the North, Wages Farm Road on the South and Sanford Road on the east. The third is located on Hardman Creek west of Hwy. 334 between Berea Road and Tal Phillips Road.
The authority already had permission from 42 percent of the property owners.
What’s next?
The authority could go to court to get access.
The largest of the three sites is along Little Curry Creek west of Nicholson inside of Brockton Loop and backing up to Brockton Road.
The other two are east of Nicholson. One is between Quail Ridge Drive on the North, Wages Farm Road on the South and Sanford Road on the east. The third is located on Hardman Creek west of Hwy. 334 between Berea Road and Tal Phillips Road.
Defined tags for this entry: Water Authority
The original design would have caused the reservoir to cross Sanford and would have pushed up to Quail Ridge Drive (which would have put the northern tip of the reservoir inside the city limits of Nicholson and resulted in use of property inside of the Quail Ridge subdivision), indicating that Sanford would have to be closed at that point (unless some type of bridge were to be built in order to keep the road open).
According to the spokespersons at the meeting, the reservoir has been downsized by a height of approximately 20 feet, which will keep the water to the south of Sanford (allowing the road to remain open). The buffer for the reservoir could extend slightly to the north of Sanford (according to the maps on display at the meeting) but will no longer reach Quail Ridge Drive (nor into the Quail Ridge subdivision).
Unless the plans for reservoir #4 have changed since the time of the meeting, the information from the meeting supercedes the information contained in the article.