David JacksonJASPER, Tenn. — In a county filled with historic rivalries and deep-seated bad blood, local municipalities working together toward a common goal has been all too uncommon.
Marion County Mayor David Jackson said when he took office last September that one of his primary goals was to promote cooperation among the various communities to make the county stronger as a whole.
Signs of that teamwork may be starting to show up after Jackson met with the mayors of all the county’s municipalities in January.
He said one of the main points of that meeting was to “start the conversation again” about creating a regional wastewater facility that would serve the entire county and boost the area’s appeal to industry.
“We got a lot of input [from the cities’ leaders],” he said of the meeting. “We’re looking at that project again.”
Officials with the Southeast Development District plan to “acquire some funds” to help the county complete a study into the project’s feasibility, Jackson said.
In the summer of 2010, all signs pointed to the $10 million wastewater plant project becoming a reality after more than a year of collaboration among South Pittsburg, Jasper and Kimball officials, as well as the Marion County Commission.
Former South Pittsburg Mayor Mike Killian said in June 2010 that he was “fully with this project,” and that he thought the regional treatment plant was “doing the right thing” for the county.
Just five months later, Killian and the South Pittsburg City Commission pulled the town’s support for the project suddenly. As its biggest investor, that meant the odds the facility would ever be built dropped dramatically.
Kimball and Jasper leaders vowed to move forward together with the project by significantly upgrading Jasper’s ailing treatment plant, since that town was under a state order to get its facility fixed.
Postponements with funding and environmental surveys plagued the project from there.
“It’s kind of like a fish-or-cut-bait thing,” Gary Cosby, an engineer with CTI Engineers Inc. in Chattanooga, said in December 2011. “[Jasper] can’t delay hardly any longer and still expect to meet the deadline.”
City administrators believed they would get at least 45 percent of the project cost paid for through federal grant money.
When those funds dried up in early 2012, Jackson, Kimball’s mayor at the time, said the “deal fell through” because the two towns couldn’t afford to build a facility on their own.
The regional wastewater treatment facility idea collapsed.
South Pittsburg rebuilt its own facility for more than twice the cost of the town’s estimated $1.5 million commitment to the proposed regional wastewater treatment facility, and Jasper was forced to shoulder the entire costs of fixing its own plant.
“We were just not able to make it work at that time,” Jackson said.
With new leadership in each of the three towns and Jackson now in charge of the county government, officials hope the project may work this time.
Ryan Lewis is based inMarion County. Contact him atryanlewis34@gmail.com.