by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer

At the Feb. 16 meeting of the Sewanee Utility District Board of Commissioners, new commissioners Johnny Hughes and Donnie McBee were sworn in to serve a four-year term. The board elected incumbents Charlie Smith and Doug Cameron to serve as president and vice-president for 2022 and Ronnie Hoosier to serve as secretary. To orient the new commissioners, manager Ben Beavers provided an overview of operations and the issues confronting SUD.

“Unaccounted-for water is water that left the water plant and didn’t go through a meter somewhere,” Beavers explained. SUD recorded unaccounted-for water loss of almost 29 percent for December. In 2013, SUD replaced all meters and unaccounted-for water loss dropped down to 19 percent, but has been coming back up, Beavers said. He attributed much of the rise to “failure” of the new meters after only eight years, when they were supposed to last 12-18 years. SUD is replacing faulty meters with a different brand. Unaccounted-for water loss costs SUD approximately a half hour of water plant operations per day, 8 percent of the utility’s operating budget. Beavers hopes to cut that amount in half. He stressed, by industry standards, a certain amount of unaccounted-for water loss was unavoidable.

Updating commissioners on the TDOT project to narrow Highway 41A, Beavers said by law the cost of relocating water and sewer lines fell to SUD, and SUD was required to hold money in escrow to pay for the relocation. Relocating water lines was complete and cost $24,000 over the initial estimate, Beavers said. The unfinished sewer portion of the project was expected to cost $600,000 but will likely cost less, $275,000-$300,000. “When we get the final bill, I’m assuming the board will want to approach the University about honoring their verbal commitment to share some of the cost,” Beavers said. According to Beavers, in conversation in 2020 with Frank Gladu, who then headed up the Sewanee Village project, and Doug Williams, University treasurer, Beavers asked the University to assume the entire expense. Gladu said the typical arrangement was for the University to pay for 80 percent, with the other entity to assume 20 percent of the cost. The University declined to put anything in writing. Narrowing the highway was an initiative of the Sewanee Village Development project. The water and sewer lines dug up and removed in conjunction with narrowing the highway were “perfectly fine,” Beavers said.

Hoosier introduced a discussion about possible personnel shortage. Beavers said SUD had 12 employees when he became manager and now had eight, with four people trained and licensed to operate the water plant and three trained and licensed to operate the sewer plant. SUD now operated with fewer employees because much of the rehab work requiring a full crew was done in 2004-2008. Beavers puts money aside to hire out big jobs to private contractors. Beavers said, ideally, SUD needed another half person. He had two good applicants, but not enough work to employ someone full time. “It’s not the most glamorous job,” Beavers said, “but it’s decent pay with good benefits.” He acknowledged losing an employee would impact SUD’s customer service, which was very good compared to other districts. SUD usually responds to a call about a problem within an hour.

The SUD board meets next at 5 p.m., Tuesday, March 15.