ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996 TAG: 9610280012
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-29 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: FORT CHISWELL
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
Work has started on a wastewater treatment system in the Fort Chiswell-Max Meadows area to open the eastern part of Wythe County to more business and industrial development.
"We're just beginning to realize the impact of it," said former Wythe Supervisor Olin Armentrout at a recent groundbreaking.
Armentrout and Billy Branson, who recently retired as county administrator, had made a number of trips to Washington in recent years to find federal funds for the $10 million project along Interstate 81-77.
It worked. About 60 percent of the $9 million from federal sources was secured as a grant, and 40 percent as a low-interest loan, said current Board of Supervisors Chairman Charles Dix.
Travis Jackson, regional representative for Rural Economic Community Development (formerly the Farmers Home Administration), called that "a real feat. This does not come about every day."
Work actually started last month but will become much more visible in the months ahead, said Ken Anderson of the Blacksburg firm of Anderson & Associates Inc., consulting engineers on the project. The project is so massive that six contractors have been hired to carry it out.
"We should be having the start-up on most of this stuff this time next year," Wythe County Administrator Cellell Dalton said.
County officials recognized the need for this service in eastern Wythe County near the Pulaski County line as far back as the early 1980s, Dix said. It was a section of the county where outdoor privies co-existed with wells providing water to the community, raising concerns of contaminated water sources. Larger drainage fields for home septic systems and small package treatment plants like those used by businesses already locating along the interstate corridor proved impractical for homes.
The county managed to get a planning grant a few years ago through the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. Then the board faced a decision on whether to require area home owners who had already invested in individual septic systems to hook onto the new line when it is built.
Former Supervisor Alan Dunford, who attended the groundbreaking ceremony, told a reporter that some people were still angry at him for having voted for the mandatory hook-on. But it would have cost the county $4,000 for every house bypassed, and that would have made the project unaffordable.
Branson and Armentrout approached the U.S. agriculture secretary and Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, in their search for federal funds.
Boucher recalled Armentrout telling him a first-rate system was necessary to accommodate the interstate corridor growth taking place.
"He's quite persuasive," said Boucher, who quickly came on board to support the funding. Armentrout "made it his personal cause to have this system built," Boucher said. "And 1,200 people are going to receive direct service from this project."
The wastewater collection and treatment system will also open the door to industrial and commercial growth in this part of the county, he said.
Lloyd Jones, state director of Rural Economic Community Development, said the project includes 125,000 feet of transmission line ranging from 6 inches to 24 inches in diameter, five sewage pump stations, and a 500,000-gallon-per-day treatment plant.
"It will also be an opportunity for businesses to come into this area, to develop along this corridor," Jones said.
Some businesses are already here. The groundbreaking took place at the Fort Chiswell Recreational Vehicle Campground, and in sight of the sprawling Factory Merchants Mall.
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Armentroutby CNB