Whitwell sewer project awarded

WHITWELL, Tenn. — The winning bid for a sewer system in Whitwell was just under the $500,000 grant town officials got two years ago to pay for it, the town’s interim manager said.

“We were lucky on the way his bid came in,” said Charles Tucker, interim city manager.

The winning bidder was Wartrace, Tenn.-based Hawkins & Price LLC with a price of $464,802.50 to build a system to serve all the town’s residents, he said.

“We’ve got about 1,600 people here in Whitwell,” Mr. Tucker said.

Every home in Whitwell has a septic system and even the Hardee’s in town had to have its own treatment facility before it could be built, he said.

Vernon McCumbers has lived on Whitwell’s East Spring Avenue since 1991. He said he’s had to have his septic system pumped out twice and a field line installed once to keep it working.

“Right now, it’s working OK, but there for a while I didn’t know what the problem was. It wasn’t wanting to go down,” Mr. McCumbers said.

“They (a private septic service) came and put in a new 4-inch field line about four or five years ago,” he said.

Mr. McCumbers, 73, said public sewer probably would be valuable for the town, though he said he didn’t know of anyone who had major problems with their septic systems.

“I’d get it,” he said. “I think it would be a good idea.”

The project includes installation of almost 11,000 lineal feet of sewer line and a 180-gallon-a-minute pump that will move sewage to Jasper for treatment on an existing line between the two Marion County towns, officials said.

Whitwell’s high school and elementary school are the only buildings in town connected to the line to Jasper, according to Mr. Tucker. The project will tie Whitwell Middle School to the line, he said.

The project will focus first on the middle school, then homes and eventually businesses, he said.

“Everything’s going OK right now,” Mr. Tucker said. Construction should start in the next 30 days, he said. He said no completion date had been set.