Signal Mountain's water lines may never break again if a new resolution stays dry.
Officials have seen several "problem areas" in residential communities with flimsy underground pipes, so the Signal Mountain Town Council approved a resolution Monday that will allow Town Manager Honna Rogers to negotiate a $19,000 contract with Arcadis Engineering for "water system improvement."
The resolution unanimously passed.
"One of the things I'm very big on is long-range planning, and when I looked, we didn't have a long-range plan for replacing lines," Mrs. Rogers said. "We only replace problem areas."
Mrs. Rogers wants Signal Mountain's problem-solving approaches to be more "proactive than reactive."
"It'll look at what our pipes are, the age, the capacities, how it affects the residents," she said. "They'll make recommendations to us on the top changes we could make to improve the system."
In previous cases, water line installation was a major gamble of trial and error with "nothing scientific" to back up strategy, Mrs. Rogers said.
"You can't start making a plan if you don't have facts to make up that plan," she said.
Town Attorney Phillip Noblett expressed his desire to tighten the contract so officials easily could keep all records describing business dealings with Arcadis. The current agreement fails to stipulate mutual record retention.
"We want to make sure we straighten that issue out before we go through with all this," he said.
The Arcadis contract will come out of the town's general fund.