Lack of water = Schools hurting.

[pepelect]

Just a thought
Has any one ever thought about why the population of elk county continues to decline.  Let's say by some rare event you landed a job in or around the area.  Your first and foremost problem would be where to live.  Picking a community and finding out about the schools.  The next stumbling block you will have is housing.  In all of our communities there are slim pickings.  The houses that are livable usually have someone living in them.  The ones that are for sale need so much work that by the time you pencil out the remodel you could have bought a new house.

So you decide to bite the bullet and build.  The only problem is where.  If you choose the north half of the county you can get on the Greenwood rural water system if you know a guy that knows a guy that has a picture of goat in a compromising position and about $20k will get a meter if you are only a mile from the existing line and want to pipe it yourself. 
I you choose the south half of the county you can get on rural water fairly easy. 

But if you choose land to purchase in the middle of the county outside of the cities you better have a brother in law that has a drilling rig and a couple of witching sticks.  You better get used to the taste salt water.  Have a good plumber on call because the sandy back fill you put in the well to get rid of the salt will eat up your pump.  Oh and by the way you still have to haul your drinking water from town because the well you just drilled is undrinkable to pets and humans for long periods of time because of high something. 

RWD#2 has been trying to get funding for a block grant and guaranteed loan from the state.  The amount of red tape is Hugh.   Site surveys, bug surveys, historical surveys, engineering studies, economic studies, crazy.........

Most people  take for granted that when you are thirsty you go get a drink.  But as even our school system finds out the water from the tap might not always be there.  We have had to drink bottled water at the grade school because of failing municipal utilities probably caused by age and lack of maintenance.  But the biggest issue is source.

Right now the city of Howard has agreed to provide water to the rural until a better source can be found.  The better source in my opinion should come from a Whole Sale Water district.  It should be comprised of all the local communities and should have multiple sources.  Yes water from Quivira would be the closest but there must also be a plan for tapping in to ECRWD#1, Greenwood, and Wilson counties system if the need should ever be there. 

I also think the biggest potential is the large lake on the Palmer property in the west side of the county.  It sits at the highest elevation and you would not have to pump as much as bucking gravity from the other sources will require. 

What we need is some highly funded political influence to grab this as a pet project and get the ball rolling.   

[pepelect]

More water means more people.  More people means more jobs.  More jobs bring in younger people with kids. 

WIND is the same way.  The more wind energy is utilized in the area the more population we will have to build, service, and live in the area.  I think we need to gear up for the upcomming micro construction boom that the pastures west of town are going to experience in the next few years.   This is a great community to live and raise kids.    We might actally trap one or two of those newbies to stay a while.   Couple hundred miles of electrical wiring has already been replaced thanks to a lovely ice storm and the only other thing they need is water.  We can get that if we are very vocal and see the need to get on down the stream.

Every time you flush your stool or wash your car just think  that  you could be hauling water instead.


Plan your wash cycle around how much water you have in the tank.

Do I take a bath or water the stock?  Did I do dishes before or after I put in the white?





PEP RULZ #78  Water good





ps.  When they start a new wind project do they break ground or break wind?

[DanCookson]

Valium Patrick, Valium...

Talk to your wife, maybe she can hook you up!!!

lol

Great point on the workers.  Everyone I know that visits us always comments on how nice the people are and what a nice town we have.

[L Hendricks]

PEP has mentioned it - we do have a glimmer of hope - in 09 a wind project will start up on the western edge of the county.  1 year construction time - many construction jobs.... After construction, for maintenance, possibly 7 fulltime jobs and these aren't the 20K ones...

[Wilma]

Wouldn't a better source of water increase the chances of new industry in Elk County.  I understand that new businesses back off when they find out there isn't sufficient water.

As for conserving water, I didn't know there was such a thing as no good and plentiful well water until we moved to Elk County in 1947.  Suddenly, we were having water hauled to fill the cistern and hoping that the well would come back to supply water for outside purposes.  Everybody had ponds for the livestock because they didn't have wells to fill stock tanks.

If we could get another rural water district in Elk County, surely our population would increase and there would be more children in the school system.

[hhjacobs]

 If our water plant in Howard is in need of repairs. Why don't we get it fix with some of the money that was report at year end Bank Recnciliation Report. Dated Feb. 27,2008. Ending period balance all funds $1,407,885.28.

[pepelect]

D COOKSON
Valium for me would be like if you are an alcoholic and and are sent to AA it would just band aid the problems and I don't want to quit.  I don't have a problem.  Just because I don't have a life and my only friends are the emotionicons doesn't mean that therapy would do any good. 

Maybe I'll just start drinking?!!!


I have never seen a fat meth head?!!!

You are correct.  I will become a user, abuser, and drug king pin of the county.    I WILL BE THE PEP RULZER.  So don't you disrespect my family. 

Or you will sleep with the fishes in Polk DANials lake.



PEP RULZ

[DanCookson]

You have more friends than the emotion icons!!!

Forgetaboutit........

[Diane Amberg]

Are you all on septic? or what do you do about sewerage? Industry would need some form of that and enough to make it flow or pumping stations, gray water systems or something. Could you do desalinization to get industrial wells working? There must be something that doesn't corrode too badly.

[Wilma]

Howard has a sewer system with lagoons.  I doubt if it would be sufficient to handle an industry.  I am pretty sure that Moline has a sewer system but I don't know about the other towns.  I was going to say that in the country they have septic tanks but I believe that more are going to lagoons now.  An industry could have it's own waste disposal system probably.  And that is all I know about it.