David JacksonJASPER, Tenn. - Residents from the Riverside community, an approximately eight-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 41 between Guild, Tennessee, and Raccoon Mountain, have been trying to get Marion County leaders to build a waterline there for many years.
In January, County Mayor David Jackson announced that Marion would be applying for a $525,000 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Development Block Grant to bring water to the north end of Alvin C. York Highway. Jackson said once that grant is "finished out," county leaders will seek more grant money to bring water across the South Pittsburg Mountain area.
That news brought Riverside resident Bill Jochym to the Marion County Commission's February meeting because he said that area's residents have been trying to get the same thing for almost 20 years.
"I don't know how long they've been trying to get a waterline," Jochym told the board. "Maybe it's longer than us, but we just need some water. I guess we just sort of politely got the bum's rush on the water issue."
He said there have been meetings on the issue that were attended by residents, Tennessee American Water representatives, county officials, and others.
"The last meeting we had was a year ago - almost a year ago," Jochym said. "Everybody seemed really, really excited, like you know, we can do this. We can get this done."
Riverside residents were encouraged to write to their state and federal leaders about getting funding to make the waterline a reality, he said.
Jochym wrote letters to U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander , U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais and former U.S. Sen. Bob Corker.
"I got no response back whatsoever from Congressman Alexander," he said.
Jochym said he got an email from Corker's team encouraging Jochym to seek the same grants for which he was requesting Corker's help.
A DesJarlais representative called and promised to forward Jochym's request to the person on the congressman's team who handled grants, but he never heard from them again.
"That was almost a year ago," Jochym said.
During his years living in the area, Jochym said he's gone through three wells and many filtration systems.
"Our water has sulfur and sodium, and we've spent close to $50,000 [on drilling]," he said. "None of which is deductible on our taxes. We just need some help."
Jackson said the cost estimate for a waterline to Riverside is approximately $3 million.
"We can apply for grants when it's a publicly-owned water system," he said. "Tennessee American Water is a private company. We're still trying to search some money to get some type of assistance to help do that."
Bringing a waterline from Jasper to Riverside is "not logistically feasible," Jackson said.
Commissioner Joey Blevins said the county could build the estimated $3 million waterline system and facility, and then sell it to Tennessee American Water if the company were "willing to buy it."
"That's kind of the way," he said. "That's what I understood was discussed at the meeting."
Jackson said if the county only gets a $500,000 grant to do that, it would still leave $2.5 million that the county would have to fund.
"We've not given up," he told Jochym. "We've just hit a roadblock. We're still trying to find some type of assistance to do that, but the money it's going to cost is just more than the county can afford to spend out to do it at this time."
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com