Members of the Hamilton County Water and Wastewater Treatment Authority today agreed to hire more workers and try to better schedule plumbing work to expedite sewer upgrades across the county.
A subcommittee of the county sewer agency also voted today to recommend that the authority hire two more employees and convert a part-time job to full-time status to better handle scheduling and bill paying for local plumbers.
Gino Shipley, a Soddy-Daisy commissioner and owner of Shipley Plumbing, said such changes should help expedite payments to plumbers working on WWTA projects.
"This is going to help tremendously with the paperwork and getting our money on time," Shipley said. "But we still need to be paid more."
The WWTA committee on the Private Service Lateral Program will meet again on Feb. 17 to consider other possible changes to boost participation in the county program.
The WWTA launched a pilot program last year to test and upgrade sewers on Signal Mountain, where a building moratorium is in place because of widespread problems with leaking sewer lines.
The WWTA wants to test or upgrade 300 homes a month but, because of a lack of plumber participation, only about 58 homes are being completed in the program each month, according to WWTA Executive Director Cleveland Grimes.
For complete details, see tomorrow's Times Free Press