Lamar passes water rate increase
By Samantha Lyles, slyles@newsandpress.net
Lamar Town Council held a special meeting on June 26 to finalize their 2017/18 budget, which contained an 8 percent increase for municipal water service.
At their June 12 regular meeting, members of Council disagreed about the amount of this year’s increase, but all agreed that a rate hike was necessary in order to keep the town in consideration for grants and funding from state and federal agencies.
The Town of Lamar has been purchasing all of its municipal water from the Darlington County Water and Sewer Authority (DCWSA) since February of 2016, when South Carolina DHEC shut down the second of Lamar’s two water wells due to trace radium detection.
Lamar is now pursuing a comprehensive loan/grant package to finance over $2.6 million in repairs and updates for its water system. The project would address several key system needs, including building a new water treatment plant at a cost of $1.2 million, sinking a new 250 GPM (gallons per minute) well for $362,700, and replacing dated and unreliable water meters with new RF (radio frequency) models.
In May, the town was notified that they will receive a $500,000 grant from South Carolina Rural Infrastructure Authority to paint and rehab two water towers. At the June 12 meeting, Council member Mike Lloyd said that according to Hanna Engineering, it is possible the project could be completed within a year. Grant administrator Jannie Lathan of Lathan Consulting, LLC added that while the project timeline was originally estimated at 18 months, a 12-month timeline could be feasible.
At present, the town’s Water Department is running on thin margins while purchasing water from DCWSA and tracking down over 1 million gallons of unbilled water per month, chiefly lost through costly leaks and faulty meters. The final budget for 2017/18 estimates department income of $326,925 and expected expenditures of $304,226, leaving only $22,699 to cover broken water line repairs and any other issues that may crop up.
Other departmental budgets included an Administrative Budget with $391,817 in income and $121,449 in expenses, and a Police Department budget with $2,500 in proposed income and expenditures of $243,557.